Tapper Battles Bessent on Trump-Qatar: Nobody Gives a $400M Jet ‘To Be Nice!’

CNN’s Jake Tapper took on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over the premise that the $400 million gift that President Donald Trump’s administration is accepting from Qatar comes with no strings attached.

In an interview on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, Tapper seemed incredulous at the notion that Qatar doesn’t expect anything in return for the plane.

“You’re a hard-nosed businessman,” Tapper told Bessent. “Even if Qatar isn’t asking for anything in return now for the jet, I mean, that’s a bill that could come due. Nobody in the Middle East — or anywhere in the world — just gives a $400 million jet just to be nice!”

But Bessent toed the company line, and argued that there might not be more than meets the eye.

“I don’t know, Jake,” Bessent said. “The French gave us the Statue of Liberty. The British gave us the Resolute Desk. I’m not sure they asked for anything in advance.”

Tapper, though, pointed out a key difference between those two gifts and the one from Qatar. The plane — unlike the gifts Bessent mentioned from France and Great Britain — will transfer to Trump’s library foundation when he is out of office.

“It belongs to the American people,” Tapper said of the Statue of Liberty. “It doesn’t belong to whoever was president at the time.”

“Well, I think that this plane would be a gift to the American government,” Bessent replied.

Watch above, via CNN.