Overview
- President Trump announced Sunday that the Qatar‑donated Boeing 747 serving as Air Force One will be taken out of service for roughly a month to be “maxed out,” and that he will use the older presidential plane while the work is done.
- Reporting by multiple outlets said the hurried L3Harris refit, completed to make the jet a temporary 'bridge' aircraft, left out some standard presidential defensive systems including certain anti‑missile countermeasures, prompting a July 8 swap to an older plane on a leg from Turkey.
- National security experts say a one‑month overhaul is unlikely to install full kinetic missile‑defense suites and is more likely to add non‑kinetic fixes such as electronic jammers, infrared dazzlers or chaff and flare systems.
- Lawmakers and watchdogs have pressed ethical and budgetary questions about accepting a foreign government gift and about retrofit costs, which range from the Air Force’s estimate of under about $400 million to outside estimates above $1 billion and include reports of redirecting unspent Sentinel ICBM funds.
- The Justice Department subpoenaed New York Times reporters after the security reporting and the newspaper is fighting the orders in court, while Congress and security officials continue oversight of the plane’s readiness and the decision to accept the gift.