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If you’re familiar with your folklore, you’ll know the story of The Emperor’s New Plane, in which some barely-even-wily out-of-towners turn up with an offer to give a vain and selfish leader a new $400m Boeing 747-8. The merits of accepting this “flying palace” are invisible only to those who are stupid or incompetent, which means the emperor would literally be an idiot not to take it, right?
Right? And so it is that Donald Trump is STUNNED that anyone could be so dumb as to not think he should accept the offer of a state-of-the-art griftliner from the Qatari royal family. This will supposedly become Air Force One, with that other candelabra-free dumpster presumably pensioned off to ferry someone tasteless and irrelevant. (Eric Trump?)
Then, when the second Trump imperium finishes – and please be assured that a guy who would take a freebie plane off a petrostate autocrat could not possibly have any more respect for the two-term constitutional limit – the plane will be transferred to Trump’s presidential library and become his personal property. Trump calls this entire deal with a foreign government “very transparent” – and I think we can probably agree on that. You’d have to be wearing a lead blindfold not to see right through it. In many ways the most opaque thing about it is the notion that Trump is even planning a presidential library. I thought he kept all his most precious papers behind a shower curtain or stacked next to the toilet in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom that a realtor might describe as “a wonderful opportunity for updating”. In this reading, the term “presidential library” simply functions as one of those twee euphemisms for the guest loo. “I wonder if you could show me to the presidential library?”
Anyway, Trump’s inclination to accept a freebie plane from a foreign state has even given pause to some of his Maga faithful. There are suggestions that his endless promises to drain the swamp are in fact not delivered on by instead flying over the swamp in a lavishly appointed $400m sleazemobile.
Meanwhile, because his opponents still feel they have to go through the motions of the old world, of the bygone American century, a number of leading critics have issued appalled statements. And clearly, the president should beware Qataris bearing gifts. Yet the fact is he can’t help himself. Literally the only reason you wouldn’t be able to wheel a giant wooden horse straight through the security gates of the White House without even having to scan it is that Trump only likes elaborate repro gilt, and would find this particular equine aesthetic too hideously rough-hewn and low-key.
The weird thing about the luxury jumbo jet is that it isn’t even the most eye-catching present to Trump we’ve got a look at in the past month alone. That honour probably belongs to the portrait sent to the president by Vladimir Putin, which, its Russian artist recently revealed, Putin had personally told him was a vital step in repairing Russia’s relationship with the US. Again, because people can’t see a nice gesture from an expansionist autocrat without having to read something deep into it that simply isn’t there … there has been a certain amount of consternation that Trump would accept a portrait from Putin.
But is it not just possible that the Russian president, a former KGB officer, simply knows the perfect gift? He’s like the Martha Stewart of strings-attached flattery. As for how he knows the ideal present … maybe the clues were there all along, for those who are cold-blooded enough to spot them.
Alas, now Trump is back in office, there are six news cycles/shit-floodings of the zone per day, meaning it is incredibly easy to forget that on the day when it emerged that his defence secretary had discussed operational details of a bombing raid in Yemen in a group chat, then added some journalist rando to it, we also learned about 20 other nutty things. One of these was that the president had lost his mind about what he perceived as a mildly unflattering portrait of him in the Colorado state legislature.
Like I say, you can’t keep up with it all. But friends notice these things on behalf of friends, and in retrospect, while everyone else was droning on about the Houthi raid security breach, you suspect that this was the exact moment Vladimir Putin decided to commission a portrait that his buddy WOULD like. Certainly, it wasn’t long before an oil rendering of Trump punching the air after the assassination attempt on him last July was winging its way from Moscow to the United States. Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, described it as a “beautiful portrait” and said the president was “clearly touched by it”. Yes, touched in his special place – his vanity.
For many, it’s becoming hard not to think that Trump is being played by his gifters. Imagine if you had petrostate money, and all you needed to spend to have the president of the United States fly around openly advertising his own corruption was $400m. It’s insanely cheap at the price.
Except, at the same time, it’s increasingly hard to experience the feeling of outrage at Trump’s behaviour as much more than the occasional twitch of a phantom limb. This, of course, is because the most useful thing Trump was ever gifted, possibly by a fairy at his christening, is the 21st century’s greatest superpower. Namely, a complete inability to feel shame. Almost nothing is more valuable, certainly not a mere $400m plane or a bad-art portrait. It would be good to think the emperor was naked – but unfortunately, only his corruption is.
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Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
