Donald Trump couldn’t even get the plane right
When Trump enthusiastically revealed his vision for a redesign of Air Force One in June 2019, he was quickly mocked for simply copying the patriotic design of his private Boeing 757 plane and flipping it, with a dark blue hue running along the entire bottom of the plane. “The baby blue doesn’t fit with us,” the former guy Trumpsplained on Fox News, claiming that the iconic design of light blues selected by President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy was getting old.
After President Joe Biden took office, Lt. Gen. Duke Richardson told the press in September 2021 that Donald Trump’s redesign was far from a done deal. Calling it a “cartoon,” Richardson emphasized that Trump’s dream is “not a real airplane” but “just something that’s on a paper.”
Now, thanks to a warning on Wednesday from the U.S. Air Force, President Biden has grounded Trump’s plans permanently. Painting the bottom half of Air Force One a dark blue hue is apparently a colossally bad idea. This one color change would lead to heat retention, the Air Force cautioned, which would increase temperatures and require the planes (two in all) to undergo very costly cooling modifications, according to a report from Politico.
As a result, an anonymous Biden administration official told Politico on Friday that Trump’s “paint scheme is not being considered because it could drive additional engineering, time and cost.” The new planes, which are expected in the air in 2026, will likely retain the beloved Kennedy-inspired light blue and white color scheme. As the Rolling Stones song (with which Trump is all too familiar) goes: “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Sorry, Trump.
Ron Leshnower is a lawyer and the author of several books, including President Trump’s Month