Congressional Cowards is a weekly series highlighting the worst Donald Trump defenders on Capitol Hill, who refuse to criticize him—no matter how disgraceful or lawless his actions.
Not even accepting a $400 million bribe from a foreign country is enough to get President Donald Trump’s biggest supporters in Congress to deviate.
Hardcore Trumpers, as well as some other big-name GOP leaders, refused to get on Trump’s bad side by saying that he can’t accept the big, fancy luxury jet that Qatar’s ruling family offered. Trump told people in private that he wants the jet because it’s “humiliating” to fly in the “outdated” Air Force One.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said that “it’s not my lane” to weigh in on whether Trump should accept the jet, even though the Constitution quite literally says that Congress would have to approve the gift.
“Look, I’ve been a little busy on reconciliation, so I’m not following all the twists and turns of the Qatar jet. I’ve certainly heard about it. My understanding is it’s not a personal gift to the president, it’s a gift to the United States, and other nations give us gifts all the time,” he said at a press conference.
Meanwhile, Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland said he has “no problems” with Trump accepting the bribe, and Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana said it’s okay because Trump is a rich guy who needs fancy things.
“He’s a billionaire businessman from New York. He doesn’t sleep in a sleeping bag overnight. He says, ‘Hey, this is a great plane,'” Zinke told CNN.
And Sens. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and Steve Daines of Montana are celebrating the bribe—because it’s free.
“You can’t beat free,” Daines said.
“Free is good. You know, we don’t have a lot of money right now to buy things like that,” Tuberville told CNN.
Of course, it’s not fully free, as it would take hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to outfit the plane for the needs of Air Force One.
Then there’s Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, who said he has “zero issue” with Trump accepting the plane. And you could almost hear the wheels turning in Sen. Rick Scott of Florida’s head as he tried to work through how he could justify defending Trump on this issue.
“Gosh, let me give you a plane. I mean, that seems pretty nice, but they support Hamas, so I don’t know,” Scott said.
But while a number of Republicans support Trump in taking the bribe, this issue has gotten more Republicans than usual to criticize Dear Leader, citing concerns with accepting a plane from a country that has offered funding to Hamas.
“I do think the jet probably sends the wrong signal, and I don’t like the look or appearance of it, so I would hope he would reject it. The Constitution specifically says you can’t take gifts from foreign leaders,” Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky told Fox business.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia told CNN, “I’d be checking for bugs is what I’d be checking for.”
Even Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas isn’t onboard with accepting the jet from Qatar.
“I’m not a fan of Qatar. I think they have a really disturbing pattern of funding theocratic lunatics who want to murder us, funding Hamas and Hezbollah, and that’s a real problem. I also think the plane poses significant espionage and surveillance problems, so we’ll see how this issue plays out but I certainly have concerns,” he said on CNBC.
Meanwhile, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said that it would be ridiculous to think that the Qataris won’t be expecting anything in return for the massive gift.
“How many of us have actually been offered the promise of a jet? When you get something of that value from a country, one typically thinks that there’s something in it for the country that is offering it,” she said.
And for Rep. Jeff Hurd of Colorado, the main issue with Trump accepting a bribe from Qatar is the country’s ties to Hamas.
“I have serious concerns with this so-called gift from the government of Qatar—security concerns, ethical concerns with this used airplane. But it’s also a gift from a government that supports terrorist organizations like Hamas. So, if there were a Democratic president that was accepting a gift like this, we’d be outraged. I think it’s something that we should look at carefully,” he told CNN.
With so many Republicans suggesting that they don’t support Trump’s acceptance of the bribe, it’s unclear whether Trump will still go through with the transaction.
But if this does go to Congress, which would be constitutionally required to take a vote, it looks exceedingly unlikely that he’d be able to accept his precious plane anyway.