Of all things, the Qatari gift jet is dragging Trump down further

The "flying palace," as well as the military parade for his birthday, touched a nerve as the economy is faltering and prices are rising because of his tariffs. [Audio]

There are so many horrible injustices perpetrated by Donald Trump—from brutal attacks on immigrants to the targeting of law firms and universities—but none of this is registering with the MAGA base in recent days quite like the $400 million jet Trump’s claiming he will accept as a gift from Qatar to replace Air Force One, which may cost almost $1 billion to upgrade.

Some soft Trump voters have been horrified by those other issues, seeing students snatched on the streets and law firms bowing to Trump—and we’ve seen Trump’s approval numbers on immigration go down—but the extremist MAGA personalities like Ben Shapiro, Laura Loomer, radio host Mark Levin and others have mostly been silent on those issues or defending Trump, while they have been slamming the Qatari gift.

The Signorile Report is free and reader-supported. If you’ve valued reading The Signorile Report, consider becoming a paid subscriber and supporting independent, ad-free opinion journalism. Thanks!

Also speaking out against it are MAGA Republican members of Congress, from Ted Cruz to Josh Hawley, who never criticize Trump. Enough Republican senators have come out against it that the gift would be voted down by Congress, which, by law, actually must approve gifts of this kind to the country.

Of course, the outrage is not enough that these cowards in the GOP will actually be moved to force a vote and try to stop Trump. But they’re likely feeling pressured to publicly express the opinions of their constituents who are contacting them, the MAGA base—who follow the MAGA online personalities, who have big platforms. And those opinions are like that of a caller to my SiriusXM show yesterday, a three-time Trump voter, who is so angry about the jet—and about Trump’s $45 million military parade to celebrate his birthday—that he’s dumping Trump. (Audio is embedded below.)

The hardcore MAGA couldn’t care less about Trump’s brutality against people—they actually love it—so events like immigrants sent to torture prisons and parents being taken from their children don’t move the needle much with them.

And while many are claiming their opposition to the Qatari royal family’s gifted jet is about taking something from a country that has supported Hamas, this is much more about them, and their own pocketbooks. The only thing that moves these people is how something affects themselves. Don’t forget: They’ve given Trump a pass or even cheered him for emboldening more dangerous foreign leaders than the Emir of Qatar, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

No, the true reason the Qatar jet has broken through is that it connects to the other issues that have jolted the MAGA base: Trump’s tariffs, the faltering economy and rising prices. Trump promised to bring down prices on day one and instead sent the economy into a downward spiral with tariffs. Many of the same MAGA personalities attacking the gifted jet also criticized Trump on tariffs, like Shapiro. They saw their stock portfolios plummet and watched prices continue to rise.

More so, they heard from their millions of followers—the people who line their pockets, many of whom have been struggling—and the Republicans in Congress heard from their constituents. They’re hearing what the caller to my show, Albert from Cleveland, said about the military parade and the Qatari jet; you can listen to that call here.

Albert voted for Trump three times, but now he’s off the Trump train because of the military parade—and the millions spent on it “when there are people starving in this country”—and the Qatari jet.

As I’ve said in the past, I don’t give a really hard time to these MAGA callers who apologize for their vote—which he did, saying, “I made a mistake”—even as their claims are mind-boggling.

I ask a few questions to challenge them and to learn their motivations past and present—and their answers are not even remotely satisfying—but I don’t push too hard. (Usually, I ask if they will work to elect a Democrat in the mid-terms—which I think should be our priority right now over pushing them away—but I actually didn’t have the time on this one because I had to go to a guest.)

I think that if prices were down, and if tariffs weren’t creating havoc on the economy, these people would be fine with Trump accepting the “palace in the sky,” having a military parade and using government dollars on himself.

But they’re not getting theirs, while Trump is treating himself like a king and enriching himself. They’re fine with lot of other people suffering; their deal with Trump was that he was supposedly going to make things better for them, even if he and his family would be grifting, as they did in his first term.

Trump doesn’t seem to get how broadly his tariff disaster has now affected him, as more of these flashpoints will arise, and wake people up. All of it presents opportunities for Democrats.