Trump Said Qatar "Funds Terror," Accepted Jet Anyway
A secret audio from 2017 reveals an extreme reversal.
Donald Trump is facing widespread criticism for his corrupt (and possibly illegal) decision to accept a $400-plus million jet from the government of Qatar. But an important question seems to have been overlooked: We know what Trump expects to get from this deal, but what did he give? The answer: a warm embrace for a nation he once accused of funding global terrorism.
In 2017, my program The Zero Hour received an anonymously recorded speech from a closed-door Trump fundraiser in which Trump accused Qatar of giving “hundreds of millions of dollars” to fund “radical Islamic terrorism.” (I wrote about it in The Intercept at the time.)
Trump even made a xenophobic joke about the pronunciation of that country’s name. “We’ve always [pronounced it] Qa-TAR. It’s QAT-er they prefer,” Trump said, adding, “I prefer that they don’t fund terrorists.”
Trump offered no evidence for his accusation, nor has he provided any since then. When he made his remarks, however, Saudi Arabia and several other Arab countries were leveling similar charges against Qatar. Saudi Arabia had recently closed its land border with Qatar, the source of most of Qatar’s food imports.
It would normally have been puzzling to see a United States president weigh in so strongly on a regional dispute of this kind, even in a private meeting. Trump, however, has never been a normal president. He made no secret of his interests in Saudi Arabia, telling a crowd during a 2016 campaign rally:
"Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much."
(There’s more on his 2017-era Saudi conflicts of interest here.)
What changed his mind about Qatar, Saudi Arabia’s longtime rival? The jet presumably helps, of course. And the Associated Press reports that the Trump family corporation struck a deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar just last month, complete with “Trump-branded beachside villas and an 18-hole golf course to be built by a Saudi Arabian company.”
Trump has described the jet as a “gift,” telling reporters that he would be “a stupid person” not to accept it. He insisted the plane was not a gift to him personally and that he would not fly in it. But he also told reporters it would eventually go to his “library,” which would presumably make it a donation in kind. (I have criticized Barack Obama for accepting big-money donations for his library and center in Chicago.) Qatar insists that it is "inaccurate" to refer to the plane as a gift, saying the "temporary use" of an aircraft was being discussed by the two countries.
Trump says otherwise. Some of Trump’s MAGA backers are upset about this gift, but not for the right reasons. Extremists like Laura Loomer and Ben Shapiro are attacking it on Islamophobic grounds, while overlooking the appearance of corruption.
This incident shouldn’t be downplayed. The record is clear: the president of the United States reversed a strongly-worded (if undocumented) attack on another country after cutting a lucrative business deal there, then claims to have received a gift from that country—on behalf of his government and/or his presidential library foundation—worth nearly half a billion dollars. That is not the way a leader should behave. This incident should shock us, even in these jaded times.
(Note: This column has been edited to clarify what’s currently known about the jet’s status.)
Image: Non-customized Boeing 747-8 Jumbo Jet.