Former Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton criticized President Trump over his decision to accept a luxury jet from Qatar that is slated to eventually replace Air Force One.
“No one gives someone a $400 million dollar jet for free without expecting anything in return,” Clinton, a former secretary of State, said in a Wednesday post on the social media platform X.
“Be serious.”
The news of Trump’s intention to accept a $400 million Boeing 747-8 from the Qatari royal family and have it be a replacement for Air Force One, which has been in service for more than three decades, has raised alarms among Democrats on Capitol Hill.
They have criticized the development, arguing it is evidence of corruption. Nine Senate Democrats asked the Pentagon’s watchdog this week to look over the president’s potential acceptance of the plane and the role of the Department of Defense in it.
The acceptance of the jet, which would be transferred to Trump’s presidential library after his term ends, has also sparked some pushback from Republican lawmakers in the Senate.
“I’m not comfortable accepting it,” he said. “I think there are national security concerns that need to be addressed about listening devices, safety specs and potentially other issues,” Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee panel, said, adding that “we will ask that those be addressed.”
And Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the gift “poses significant espionage and surveillance problems.”
Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election to Trump. Since then, she has often criticized the president. In March, she told a crowd in Berlin that the administration “has thrown in its lot with the autocrats.”
“And we now have a government in the United States that has thrown in its lot with the autocrats, which has made a choice to support those who wage war, not peace, who have given enormous power to the men who control the information flow in our world, who have all pledged allegiance to the continuation of algorithms that not only addict us, but poison us with hatred and fear,” the former White House candidate said.
Trump pulled Clinton’s security clearance and revoked her access to classified information in March, saying it was no longer in the “national interest” for her to have it.
The Clinton Foundation in 2016 confirmed that it accepted a $1 million gift from Qatar while Clinton was serving as secretary of State.