Trump's shiny new plane isn't worth the cost — or the risk

Sometimes what goes around actually does come around. Take President Donald Trump, for instance. Days after he trolled former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama with a racist mock-up of them boarding a graffiti-laden Air Force One, Trump had to switch aircraft because his pet plane wasn’t up to security snuff.

According to published reports, Trump used a donated presidential plane before it was retrofitted with all the necessary security measures. By doing so, he put not only himself and his office at risk, but he gambled with the lives of his crew, his Cabinet, his staff and the reporters who rode on the plane to cover him. “Americans deserve answers on how the administration has decided to spend their taxpayer dollars and assume new national security risks with the VC-25B Bridge aircraft and the rushed retrofit program,” Oregon’s U.

S. Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden groused in a letter to U.S.

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink. “All in service to President Trump’s interest in having a pretty, luxurious plane for himself.” The plane controversy erup