He boasted this week that the government got the jet “for free,” saying, “We need it as Air Force One until the other ones are done.”
Here’s a look at what it would take to make the Qatari plane into a presidential transport:
Air Force One is the call sign for any plane that's carrying the president. The first aircraft to get the designation was a propeller-powered C-54 Skymaster, which ferried Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference in 1945. It featured a conference room with a bulletproof window.
Things are a lot more complicated these days. Boeing has spent years stripping down and rebuilding two 747s to replace the versions that have carried presidents for more than three decades. The project is slated to cost more than $5.3 billion and may not be finished before Trump leaves office.