President Donald Trump will debut a nearly $400 million luxury jet gifted by the government of Qatar as a new Air Force One on Wednesday, flying it for the first time in that role days before the Fourth of July and a weekend of festivities marking the nation’s 250th birthday.

The flight will carry Trump to North Dakota for the dedication of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. And Trump has said that on July 4, the new jet will lead a group of planes to do a “flyover like no flyover” to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The new Boeing 747 arrived at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on June 19 and began its commissioning flights — what the Air Force considers the “final exam” for a modified aircraft, a Trump administration official and an Air Force spokesperson told MS NOW. Once those tests are complete, the plane — dubbed VC-25B Bridge — is expected to join the Presidential Airlift Group, a specialized Air Force unit of two squadrons responsible for flying the president and for the maintenance, ground support and supply that keep the presidential fleet mission-ready.

The jet is meant to serve as a “bridge,” easing the strain on aging aircraft until two purpose-built planes enter service in 2028, the administration official and the Air Force spokesperson said. Trump has said that once he leaves office, the jet will be donated to his presidential library.

Unveiling the repainted plane to reporters earlier this month, Trump called it “the world’s most luxurious plane” and said it was “ridiculous” that the president had been flying decades-old aircraft. He praised the Emir of Qatar for providing the jet. Gone is the baby-blue-and-white scheme introduced during the Kennedy administration, replaced by three colors: red, white and blue.

“Everything was designed good. It was my taste, I will say,” Trump said at the unveiling. “He said, ‘What color do you like?’ I said, ‘I like the color of the American flag.’ Right? That makes sense.”

The unusual gift from Qatar — which Trump has called a “great gesture” that would be “stupid” to turn down — has drawn controversy since he announced it in May 2025. Critics have raised national security, foreign influence and conflict-of-interest concerns, citing Trump’s close ties to Qatari officials and his family’s deep business interests in the country, as well as the unusually quick timeline to turn it into an Air Force One.

Just weeks before the president announced the gift, the Trump Organization announced a deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar in “collaboration” with a Saudi company and a firm owned by the Qatari government. In recent weeks, Qatar’s involvement in U.S. national security interests has deepened: Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner recently arrived in Doha to continue the peace talks with Iran.

“The president time and time again makes clear that he is willing to [accept] and actively seeking gifts from foreign governments where the American people have significant national security interests, and Qatar is perhaps the most glaring and tangible example of that,” Donald Sherman, president of the government ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics told MS NOW. 

Some things the U.S. government should simply pay for, Sherman said, and the president’s plane — given its national security stakes — is one of them. He said the administration owes the public answers about whether a jet as sensitive as Air Force One can be made safe after coming from a foreign government.

“Any student of history remembers that the Trojan horse was a gift, too,” Sherman said.

President Trump last year pushed back against ethics concerns over the Qatari gift, saying the plane is being donated to the U.S. Air Force and the Defense Department — not to him personally — and will be used “temporarily” in a way that is “very public and transparent.”

In a statement to MS NOW, White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly rebutted concerns over possible conflicts of interest, saying the president “only acts in the best interests of the American public.”

“This is the same tired narrative that Democrats have pushed against President Trump, his family and his administration for a decade,” Kelly wrote, in part. “There are no conflicts of interest.”

A Trump administration official and an Air Force spokesperson emphasized to MS NOW that the new plane is equipped with the most advanced technology and was modified under a disciplined engineering approach built around keeping the president safe and connected.

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To meet the deadline, the Air Force fast-tracked a process that normally takes years. It leased a similar aircraft last October to begin training pilots and maintenance crews, and built a three-dimensional mockup of the interior in January so personnel could familiarize themselves before the first commissioning flight. A team of interagency experts developed protocols to find and, if necessary, “neutralize” any hazards left behind in the previously owned jet.

“We are confident the aircraft is safe, secure, and equipped with the most advanced technologies necessary to meet the requirements of the presidential mission. To accelerate delivery, we prioritized critical mission requirements over aesthetics,” the Air Force spokesperson told MS NOW. 

A senior Trump administration official, granted anonymity to speak freely about the ongoing security matter regarding an Air Force One aircraft, told MS NOW that “there were no shortcuts taken” in securing the plane, and that the donation of the jet “was done in full compliance with the law.”

The official explained that the White House coordinated closely with appropriate government entities and implemented complex engineering modifications to ensure all functional mission requirements were strictly met for transporting the president. Those efforts included a thorough countersurveillance inspection as part of the interior modification process and making minimal changes to the previous head-of-state interior, which the official said allowed the Air Force to field the aircraft faster without adding security risks. 

“This plane went through the same safety protocols that every Air Force One has gone through in accordance with FAA standards, and it is an FAA certified aircraft,” the official added.

The new jet is expected to join a fleet of six active aircraft in rotation for the president’s use, according to the administration official and the Air Force spokesperson, including two VC-25As with the sign “Air Force One” that have been in service since 1990 and four C-32As, oftentimes used as an “Air Force Two” or as an “Air Force One” for domestic trips that can’t accommodate the larger VC-25A.

Frank Kendall, who served as Air Force secretary under President Joe Biden, said turning an aircraft into an Air Force One typically takes years and billions of dollars — time and money that might not have been spent here.

“It’ll be safe to fly. It’ll be as secure as they could have made it,” Kendall said. “I think the biggest thing – and I can’t say a lot about it because of classification – will be the degree to which it has command and control capability on the aircraft. This includes the different systems that would have to be integrated to do that fully, as well as some of the protective measures that Air Force Ones have against different types of threats that might be employed against the aircraft.”

The security, communications and provisioning standards for an Air Force One come from the White House, Kendall said. Given the deadline, he said, the Air Force likely told Trump what it could and couldn’t deliver — and questioned whether standards may have been lowered relative to a typical Air Force One, leaving the president to take on “more risk than we’re used to taking.” The result, he said, is closer to what other nations provide their leaders.

“I think it’s an embarrassment that we’re flying around on a gift from Qatar,” he said. “We’re capable of providing the president with an airplane ourselves and I think that’s what we should be doing. In my view anyway, it’s somewhat beneath the office of the presidency to be accepting a gift as the president’s airplane.”

Priya Sridhar

Priya Sridhar is the Pentagon correspondent for MS NOW.

Soorin Kim

Soorin Kim is a White House producer with MS NOW.