Hey, I want a $400 million jet, too!  Isn’t it interesting that the President can accept this gift even though the U.S. Constitution forbids it?  constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-9/clause-8/.  And isn’t it interesting that it will be a personal gift to one person, the President?  However, before you say that it is a gift for the government, remember, it will be Air Force One while President Trump is President then gets turned over to his Presidential Library afterwards.  Essentially for his use only.

President Trump has said that he wouldn’t use the aircraft after his term is up.  Do any of us believe that?  If you do, that is 3.5 years from now.  What will change in that time?  Has he done anything in the past that would make us believe that he may not do as he says?  Maybe not listening to the Supreme Court when they order him to get an innocent man out of prison?  (See my last article.)

How about safety?  Do any of us think that Qatar wouldn’t try to bug this plane in any way what-so-ever?  Could we find any possible safety problems in the first place?  Qatar is a very clever nation when it comes to electronics and has enough cash laying around for whatever it may need done.  Why would we even accept this gifts in the first place knowing that there could be a safety issue?  A safety issue for the government and a safety issue for you and me.

Maybe President Trump doesn’t know about the emoluments clause.  After all, he said in an interview on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’, “I don’t know,” Mr. Trump replied. “I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.”  When asked whether all citizens and noncitizens in the United States were entitled to due process.  www.nytimes.com/2025/05/04/us/politics/trump-meet-the-press-interview-due-process.html.  If he doesn’t know that he probably has not read the U.S. Constitution.  And that is a very serious safety concern for all of us.

If the President doesn’t know the Constitution, then he could make any number of decisions that affect us (he has already).  Since it appears that our Congress is occupied by most people that agree with him on almost anything (though some are against the Qatar gift), that doesn’t leave us in a very good position.  We are hanging on to our liberties as if we were hanging off a building with a wounded hand.

We shouldn’t accept a Congress that is in lock step with a President.  Any President.  They are an equal branch of government that should be overseeing the Executive and Judicial branches.  If they are not doing their job, (as I have said in the past) we must vote them out.  Our next big chance is at the mid-term.  If we don’t do it then, it’s anyone’s guess on the future.  Remember, we don’t need term limitations put into law, it's our vote that can limit their terms.

Then we come to Executive Orders written, signed and published by a President.  Such written directives by the president are textually based on the provision in Article II of the U.S. Constitution that vests the president with power to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”  This power, however, must be exercised within the confines of what the U.S. Constitution and laws adopted under its authority permit.  Not only that, but they cannot overturn a current law.  In cases where the Constitution vests Congress with the powers to legislate, it can overturn such orders.  Such orders may also be overturned by the courts if they violate federal laws or the Constitution, and, in a trend that has increased in recent years, one president may rescind or amend an order by a previous president.

Most of the previous paragraph’s wording can be found in an article written by John R. Vile published on April 10, 2025 and updated May 6, 2025.  It can be found at firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/executive-orders-and-the-first-amendment/.  Many of President Trump’s Executive Orders have tried to overturn current law and have been legally challenged.  A much simpler way would be for Congress to overturn such orders.  But, as we mentioned, this does not appear to be the focus of most of our Congress.

In the same article by Mr. Vile, “An executive order that Trump issued on the first day of his second presidential term was positively entitled “Restoring Freedom of Speech and ending Federal Censorship” and pertained to social media companies.”  Yet we already have the freedom of speech.  So, what does this order do?  It doesn’t do anything.  Reading further in it, it says that the President ordered his Attorney General to investigate actions by the federal government to try and censor it.  He can ask his Attorney General to investigate but it is left up to them to determine the need.  No Executive Order is needed.

So, in addition to trying to overturn standing law, Executive Orders can be frivolous.  More for grandstanding that for anything else.  We must be vigilant through our actions.  Whether it be protesting and/or marching or voting for replacements of our current Congress, it is up to us to decide.  Of course, we can also decide not to vote which is a vote for the status quo.  All we need to determine is if we are on the right path and if we want to take a gamble on continuing this course.  But remember, gambles can bite you when you’re not looking.