Trump Compares Himself to a King While Defending Private Jet Gift

Donald Trump is trying to justify being gifted a brand-new private jet from Qatar because Air Force One is a “much less impressive” plane than the ones dictators use. 

The president is being slammed after reports surfaced Sunday that he planned to accept a $400 million “flying palace” from the Qatari royal family. If the plane, which is a Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet, is in fact given to Trump, it would be one of the largest gifts from a foreign government to a U.S. government in history. 

Speaking to Fox News’s Sean Hannity from Air Force One on Tuesday, Trump argued that Air Force One is “almost 40 years old” and nowhere near as cool as the planes used by monarchs in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.

“This is like a totally different plane. It’s much smaller, it’s much less impressive—as impressive as it is. We are the United States of America. I believe that we should have the most impressive plane,” Trump said. 

“Some people say, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t accept gifts for the country,’” he continued. “My attitude is, why wouldn’t I accept a gift? We’re giving to everybody else, why wouldn’t I accept a gift?”

But the plane is much more of a personal gift to Trump himself than to the people of the United States, whose tax-paying dollars could end up funding the president’s “free” gift. 

In a press conference Monday, Trump told reporters the plane would be a temporary replacement for Air Force One and would go directly to his personal library once he leaves office. It’s an admission that clearly violates a 1966 law preventing presidents from keeping personal gifts worth more than $480 (they can accept gifts worth more but cannot keep them after leaving office).  

“A gift you use for four years and then deposit in your library is still a gift,” Representative Jamie Raskin wrote on X. 

In other words, accepting the jet is pretty blatant corruption.

The Donald Trump effect struck in Nebraska Tuesday night as Democrats snatched another public office away from Republicans by tying them to the president’s disastrous agenda.  

The people of Omaha elected John Ewing Jr. to be the city’s first Black mayor, in a surprising defeat for Jean Stothert, the city’s three-term Republican mayor who outraised Ewing by nearly double, according to The Washington Post. 

Although the seat itself is nonpartisan, Ewing’s campaign was able to channel the voters’ negative feelings about Trump’s wild first few months in office into a victory over his opponent, who had supported the president’s run in 2024.

“Let’s say no to the chaos and elect a mayor who will actually get things done,” said one ad run by Ewing’s campaign. 

Stothert got in trouble for using the same anti-trans Republican playbook that Trump employed in his campaign. One controversial mailer distributed by a PAC on behalf of her campaign claimed that “Ewing stands with radicals who want to allow boys in girls’ sports.”

But Ewing said he’d made no such statement. “Nobody’s ever brought that question up. So I believe it’s a made-up issue by Jean Stothert and the Republican Party,” Ewing said, and his campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter to Stothert for the misleading attack. 

Ewing’s campaign was then able to use his opponent’s attack to mock her focus on such a nonissue. “Jean is focused on potties. John is focused on fixing potholes,” read one ad. 

Stothert’s campaign stood by the mailer, saying that it referred to groups that had lent their support to Ewing. During a press event last week, Stothert tried to defend herself, comparing the ads from the two campaigns.

“I would bring it back to, ‘Why is John Ewing trying to relate me to Donald Trump and saying the city is in chaos?’” Stothert said. “Donald Trump has not called me and asked me for advice.”

Stothert has tried to distance herself from the Trump administration, which she initially supported. During an appearance on the daily podcast Omapod earlier this month, she said, “I can honestly say as a Republican, I don’t like everything [Trump’s] doing and decisions he’s making. I wish he’d slow down on a lot of these decisions he’s making. I don’t advise the president.”

This election indicated that Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district, which handily backed Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election, is emerging as one of the most contested battlegrounds for control of the U.S. House in the coming midterms. Republican Representative Don Bacon’s term will be up, and he will be forced to decide whether he will run for reelection in a district that includes the “Blue Dot” of Omaha. 

Michigan Representative Shri Thanedar pushed earlier this week for a vote on his articles of impeachment, causing an unwelcome stir among Democratic leadership, who were very much not on board with the rogue effort to oust President Donald Trump.

Thanedar took to the House floor Tuesday to recognize his seven articles as privileged, giving Republican leadership two days to commence a vote on the symbolic gesture.

“It’s never the wrong time to stand up for our Constitution,” Thanedar wrote on X Tuesday, calling on his colleagues to “take action.” But liberal lawmakers disagree with forcing the impeachment process.

“People are pissed,” a senior House Democrat told Axios, on the condition of anonymity in order to share their uncensored private reactions. “He’s really just doing it for himself.”

A second House Democrat referred to Thanedar as a “dumbshit.”

“This is the dumbest fucking thing,” a third unidentified House Democrat said, calling Thanedar’s limelight-grabbing actions “utterly selfish behavior.”

Thanedar’s articles accuse Trump of obstruction of justice, bribery and corruption, and tyrannical overreach. But despite Trump’s recent actions, Democrats have no power to actually advance the articles forward.

They’re also cynical about coming down hard on the president when the Republican-dominated system that is allowing Trump to advance his agenda is still actively doing his bidding. Other Democrats were concerned that Thanedar’s uncoordinated impeachment effort would take pressure off of Republican-driven tax cuts.

“We need to focus on reconciliation,” Representative Brad Schneider, the chair of the New Democrat Coalition, told Axios. “One hundred percent of our energy is on dealing with this.”

The whole impeachment crusade has been a wash since Thanedar announced it last week, seemingly without speaking to the teams of his alleged co-sponsors. The announcement also coincided with a bit of bad news for the Michigan lawmaker: He will face intraparty competition from state Representative Donavan McKinney in the midterms for his House seat.

In an apparent vote of no confidence on Thanedar, McKinney has already received support from the progressive PAC Justice Democrats, as well as Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib, who endorsed McKinney Monday.

Still, Thanedar is refusing to back down from the articles, insisting that he won’t withdraw them unless “someone can convince me that many of my articles are incorrect.

“The rest of the members have to look into their own conscience and make a decision: is this impeachable conduct or not?” Thanedar told Axios.

The Trump administration has reportedly cut a deal with a former cartel boss in Mexico, with 17 family members being allowed to enter the United States.

Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch confirmed in a radio interview that the family of Ovidio Guzmán Lopez, the son of notorious cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, were allowed to enter the U.S., the Associated Press reports.

Guzmán Lopez took over a faction of the Sinaloa cartel after his dad was captured and imprisoned, before he himself was extradited to the U.S. in 2023. Garcia Harfuch said that Guzmán Lopez had been sharing dirt on other criminal organizations as part of a likely cooperation agreement with the U.S.

“It is evident that his family is going to the U.S. because of a negotiation or an offer that the Department of Justice is giving him,” Garcia Harfuch said. Video reportedly surfaced of cartel family members carrying suitcases while crossing the border near Tijuana, Mexico, while U.S. officials waited.

The news comes on the same day that the Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office announced that top leaders of the Sinaloa cartel were being charged with “narcoterrorism.” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon for the Southern District of California didn’t comment on the deal, but issued a threat.

“Let me be direct, to the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, you are no longer the hunters, you are the hunted. You will be betrayed by your friends, you will be hounded by your enemies, and you will ultimately find yourself and your face here in a courtroom in the Southern District of California,” Gordon said, according to the AP.

The deal is a shocking development considering that President Trump started his political career by saying, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best.”

“They’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems,” Trump said in his 2015 speech at Trump Tower in New York. “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they’re telling us what we’re getting.”

Now it seems that some people with connections to cartel leaders, who are guilty of those things, get the privilege of coming to the U.S. How does Trump explain this decision?

Donald Trump’s tax promises for the middle and working classes are actually not in his tax proposal.

The president has trumpeted the extension of his 2017 tax plan, attempting to make the bill more palatable to non-millionaires by claiming that it would end tax on tips, overtime, and Social Security benefits. But as it turns out, none of that is actually in the text of the bill.

During a heated exchange between Representative Tom Suozzi and Thomas Barthold, the chief of staff on the Joint Committee of Taxation, it became abundantly clear that none of those promises would be happening.

“On tips—the president said, ‘Your tips will be a 100 percent yours.’ Does this tax bill continue the payroll tax on people’s tips?” asked Suozzi.

“Yes it does,” said Barthold.

“Overtime. The president said, ‘Your overtime will be tax-free.’ Does this bill continue the payroll tax on overtime?” continued Suozzi.

“It does not exempt overtime from payroll tax,” said Barthold.

“The president said he’s going to remove taxes from Social Security,” pressed Suozzi. “Does this bill remove taxes on Social Security benefits?”

“The legislation provides an increased exception amount—” Barthold began, before Suozzi interrupted.

“But does it remove taxes on Social Security benefits?” reiterated Suozzi.

“It does not change Social Security,” Barthold said.

And while middle- and working-class Americans get shafted by the bill on what Trump promised them, the wealthy will continue to benefit from the president’s bill—even if it’s not what he claims he wants.

NBC reported Thursday that Trump pressed House Speaker Mike Johnson to raise the top income tax rate to close the carried interest loophole, raising the 37 percent tax rate to 2017 levels—39.6 percent—for Americans making $2.5 million or more.

But when Suozzi asked if the reconciliation bill included “an increase in the tax rate for the wealthiest people in the United States of America,” the answer wasn’t so promising.

“The legislation before you extends permanently the top bracket at 37 percent,” Barthold said.

“So it does not return it to what it was at 39.6 [percent]?” Suozzi continued.

“That is correct, Mr. Suozzi,” Barthold responded.