President Donald Trump departed Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday morning aboard a refurbished Boeing 747-8i donated by the government of Qatar, marking the aircraft’s first official flight carrying a sitting American president.
The jet, valued at approximately $400 million, features a red, white, navy blue and gold exterior selected by Trump, with the presidential seal on the fuselage and an American flag painted on the tail. The aircraft will serve as a temporary bridge plane between the aging Boeing 747-200 currently in service and two new Boeing jets not expected to be ready until 2028.
“This will be the first flight of what I think is maybe the greatest commercial plane ever built,” Trump told reporters at the base before departure. “They just completed it. They made it appropriate for a president. That means the security and all of the different bells and whistles they put on very complex stuff.”
Trump flew to Medora, North Dakota, where he visited the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library ahead of its public opening on July 4. The trip was made at the request of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the former North Dakota governor who championed the project.
The 96,000-square-foot library represents a $450 million construction effort. Trump and Burgum arrived at the museum with a ceremonial Rough Riders horseback escort before touring the facility. Trump is expected to deliver remarks at the site later Wednesday.
Trump will also visit Mount Rushmore in South Dakota on Friday before returning to Washington to mark Independence Day and the nation’s 250th birthday.
At the library, Trump signed the “Great American Outdoors Act Reauthorization,” renewing approximately $1.9 billion per year in federal funding for deferred maintenance projects on public lands. The funding targets repairs to roads, bridges, trails, campgrounds, visitor centers and water systems across the national parks and forest systems.
The previous Air Force One, a Boeing 747-200, had been in service for roughly 36 years.
“It would be parked next to the new ones like this. It really didn’t look appropriate for our country,” Trump said. “You can do two things. You can low-key it or you can show it.”
Trump confirmed he plans to fly the new aircraft to the NATO summit in Turkey next month. He also indicated it would be used for a future trip to China.
The Qatari jet was unveiled at Joint Base Andrews in late June, where Trump called it “the world’s most luxurious plane.” It will later be donated to Trump’s presidential library after his term concludes.
Roosevelt, the nation’s 26th president, established the National Park Service framework, created national monuments and dramatically expanded federal protection of natural resources. A Roosevelt quote is inscribed on the museum’s wall: “The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired.”
