Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about Trump's gift, not being a gift.

In today's episode of You Have Got to Be Kidding Me, we have some new reporting on Trump's

plane.

And wow, does it change the story?

Okay, we've talked at length about how the idea wasn't a great one to begin with.

We've gone over the national security implications, the perceived conflict of interest, the soft power considerations, and so on.

Well, the story took another twist. The whole thing has been framed by Trump as if it was a gift.

That cutter out of the goodness of their hearts had just offered up the plane out of the blue.

Well, recent reporting says that's not exactly what happened. Well, recent reporting actually says

that's nowhere near accurate. According to the

reports back in January when Trump took over, he wanted a new plane. So the Pentagon reached out to

Boeing about the planes on order and the company indicated it would take two years. Trump is said

to have wanted a plane much faster, and the Air Force

started looking at other options, while Trump reportedly took things into his own hands

and asked his Middle East envoy, Steve Whitkoff, to come up with a list of options. Boeing is said

to have provided a list of planes that would do the job to the Pentagon.

The Palace in the Sky was reportedly on that list, and once the Pentagon found out, the White House approved,

well, Whitkoff supposedly aided the initial conversation, and the Pentagon offered to buy it. Now there is a bit of a

discrepancy here in the reporting. One of the sources seems to remember the

Pentagon wanting to lease it. Oh and just as a funny aside it's reportedly not a

$400 million plane because they used a depreciated value in the negotiations.

...