Fear of Flying: How Trump’s Free Plane Became His Worst Nightmare

Trump wanted his Qatari jet enough to fight Congress, ethics watchdogs, and his own allies over it. He wanted it enough to have taxpayers help foot a nine-figure retrofit bill.

Kristoffer Ealy is a political scientist, political analyst, and professor in Southern California. He teaches American Government and political behavior, with a focus on political psychology, voting behavior, and political socialization. Subscribe to his Substack, The Thinking Class with Professor Ealy.

“I love President Trump. I would take a bullet for him.”

Those were the words of Laura Loomer, uttered in August of last year, moments after she completed what appeared to be the mandatory MAGA loyalty ritual: first pledging she’d happily take a bullet for Donald Trump, then cautiously clearing her throat before offering the gentlest criticism imaginable. Her offense? She admitted to a microscopic “sliver of concern” about Trump accepting a $400 million luxury jumbo jet from the government of Qatar—a gift so brazen it looked like the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause was being violated in broad daylight, with television cameras rolling and the paperwork practically being notarized on the tarmac.

People called it the “palace in the sky.” Ethics lawyers called it “naked corruption.” Chuck Schumer called it a “dark day in history.” Laura Loomer, a woman who has never in her life met a MAGA loyalty test she didn’t ace, called it deeply troubling — but only after first pledging to absorb small-arms fire on the president’s behalf, because apparently that’s the entry fee now. You don’t get to have an opinion about a $400 million airplane until you’ve first promised to donate your body to the cause.

I bring this up now, almost a year later, because it turns out Laura Loomer’s bullet metaphor was more prophetic than any of us realized. Trump wasn’t just willing to risk hypothetical bullets for that plane. It now appears he may have been genuinely, actually afraid to be inside it during a real war. That’s a completely insane sentence to write, and somehow it’s also a completely accurate one.

Let’s back up, because you need the full absurdist tasting menu to appreciate this properly.

When the Qatar jet story first broke last May, Trump didn’t play coy about wanting it. He didn’t hedge. He did what he always does when he gets caught standing next to something that looks spectacularly unethical: he skipped right over embarrassment, ignored self-awareness entirely, and sprinted straight to self-righteous indignation. He posted on Truth Social that the plane was a gift to the Air Force and the Department of Defense, not to him personally, and that turning down something so generous would be an act of civic malpractice.

“Only a FOOL would not accept this gift on behalf of our Country,” he wrote, capital letters doing what capital letters always do in that particular medium, which is signal that the man typing them is aware he’s on thin ice and is trying to shout his way across it.