Skeptical Maggie Haberman Calls Trump Plane Switch Excuse ‘a Little Hard to Believe’

New York Times scribe Maggie Haberman called out President Donald Trump over his excuse for switching planes on the way home from the annual NATO Summit in Turkey, calling security concerns with the new Air Force One a “related complication” of the Iran war.

Trump had claimed the $400 million jet, a gift from the Qatari government, was “flying to Europe to one of the big bases…so the soldiers can see it.”

That claim raised eyebrows, including from former CIA Director Leon Panetta, who called the given reason “a cover story.”

It was later reported that the U.S. Secret Service had asked the president to switch planes as a security precaution.

Appearing Wednesday on CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Haberman noted the still developing reporting on Trump’s mysterious plane swap and also cast doubt on Trump’s reason for doing so.

“It’s a little hard to believe,” she said, before going on to link the security issues with the Iran war:

KAITLAN COLLINS: Well, Maggie, you mentioned the president and these trips. You know, one thing that was bizarre about today is there is nothing the president has talked about more, maybe beyond the renovations, than this new Air Force One that he has, the Qatari gifted plane.

He just started flying it last week. He’s only taken it on a handful of trips, and he flew it to Turkey. But then he announced that he was sending the new plane ahead to a military base, and he would take the old Air Force One, which he has denigrated and said was, you know, an old plane out of date, embarrassing to meet with world leaders flying on that plane.

He flew that back from Turkey to the United Kingdom. And there was even video of him walking from the old plane. We’re showing that now and getting on the new Air Force One when he says it’s just for, for troops to, to tour it, is that something that you buy?

MAGGIE HABERMAN: It’s a little hard to believe that this is the only reason that that happened, for all of the reasons you suggested, my colleagues, I believe, are reporting and my colleagues, Tyler Pager and Shawn McCreesh, have been in Turkey covering this summit, and my colleagues are reporting, I believe, that the Secret Service had concerns about what could happen.

And, you know, I don’t want to mischaracterize their reporting because this is still all developing, but it does raise questions about what exactly this new Air Force One — which was gifted by Qatar to the U.S. and then will be given to President Trump when he leaves — how equipped it is with the kind of defense systems that the current Air Force One is.

This plane was rushed into circulation because President Trump wanted to fly on a new Air Force One, because the two that he had commissioned during his first term weren’t going to be ready for a variety of reasons, some Boeing’s fault, some an issue with how contracts were renegotiated.

But when you rush something, I mean, you know, when when Jonathan and I reported in The Times that they were looking at this Qatari plane, lots of people told us they could not imagine a scenario where it could properly be fitted with its defense capabilities in time to protect a president, to do what Air Force One has to do.

And so my question is, despite the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that were already spent to retrofit this plane for security, what remains?

Watch above via CNN.

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