Trump Says AF1 Gift Plane From Qatar Is Being Taken Out of Service To Be ‘Maxed Out’

President Donald Trump told reporters on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews Sunday that the luxury Boeing 747-8 gifted by Qatar as the new Air Force One was being taken out of service for a month so it could be “maxed out.”

The president’s admission, after touting the aircraft at a June press conference as “the world’s most luxurious plane,” came after a reporter asked why he was flying on an aircraft that lacked antimissile defense systems usually employed to defend the president.

Trump answered, “It has a lot of capability, but as I understand it, in about a month or so, they’re going to send it to have it be maxed out.”

The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman wrote in Monday’s paper, “It was not clear what specific upgrades Mr. Trump was referring to, or whether the time frame he gave of a month until it is ready was realistic.”

Haberman added, “Nonetheless, it appeared to be an admission from the president that the plane’s security measures are not as extensive as the models that have been designed to be built from the ground up to serve as Air Force One.”

Those models built specifically for presidential use “are intended to be a flying Oval Office, with antimissile defenses and a hardening of the plane’s wiring to protect it from an electromagnetic pulse in case there is a nuclear strike,” Haberman wrote. “The planes can also refuel in midair and contain a medical suite that can treat the president.”

The president’s comments matter in light of the Times’s reporting earlier this month “that the new jet, which he flew to Turkey, lacks the same defensive countermeasures as the older model, including antimissile capabilities.”

Following the Times’s coverage, “The White House directed the F.B.I. director to oversee an investigation into how The Times obtained the information. That resulted in the subpoenas being served to several reporters involved in the coverage, with federal agents showing up at their homes to hand-deliver them, as opposed to sending the subpoenas to the newspaper’s lawyers.”

The FBI’s actions drew the ire of press freedom advocates who decried what they claimed were First Amendment abuses.

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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