Donald Trump should accept a $400 million plane from Qatar but then sell it and use the money to train air traffic controllers at home, a senior congressional Democrat said.
“I think it's outlandish, it's against the Constitution, the emoluments clause,” Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) told Raw Story at the Capitol on Wednesday, referring to criticism of Trump's stated intent to accept the Qatari gift, from sources including the president's own supporters.
“But my feeling is, if it's worth $400 million or more, he ought to pawn it, get the money and use it to train controllers for this country, because look what's happening at Newark airport.”
The New Jersey hub has been bedeviled by delays and safety concerns, caused by a shortage of properly trained air traffic controllers. The gathering problem adds to concern over the state of U.S. air traffic control which has mounted since January, when 67 people were killed at Reagan airport in Washington D.C., in a collision between a military helicopter and a passenger jet.
Kaptur said she herself was on a delayed flight on Tuesday, “up in the air for a long time.”
“We don't have enough trained controllers for this country. So … I think the president ought not to be thinking about himself, but thinking about the dangers to travel, air travel in this country.”
Trump was in Qatar on an official visit on Wednesday. He has repeatedly said he wants to accept the Qatari plane, which is so luxurious it has been described as a “flying palace.”
The deal for the plane would reportedly see Trump use it as Air Force One while in office, then retain use through his presidential library after leaving the White House.
"Only a FOOL would not accept this gift on behalf of our Country,” Trump wrote on social media on Tuesday.
Ethics experts and politicians of both parties have decried the plan as corrupt
Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, told MSNBC: We’ve got to use this as the teaching seminar for all of America about how utterly unconstitutional this arrangement is.”
Raskin also pointed to why Democrats have so eagerly seized on the plane offer and Trump's eagerness to accept it.
“For some reason now, this flying grift or Con Air Force One, as some people are calling it, has caught the public eye and the public imagination. And it’s really broken through.”
The plane plan is also widely seen as a security risk.
Kaptur told Raw Story: “From a security standpoint, that plane doesn't have what is needed for the President of the United States anyway, but it just shows the excess that attends to certain people in the world. And I don't think our country should be hoodwinked by any multi-trillionaires, right?”
