Trump defends gifted Air Force One from Qatar during Western campaign swing

President Donald Trump used a Western campaign swing on Wednesday to pitch Republicans as vigilant supporters of gun rights and to defend his acceptance of a luxury jet from Qatar to use as Air Force One.

At an evening rally in Montana, Trump hewed close to the kind of attack lines that his party wants to hear as the president travels the country, and he warned that the Second Amendment would be “under siege” if Democrats win in November’s midterm elections.

But his message was more off script earlier in the day as he visited an economically struggling corner of rural Arizona. Trump opened his remarks there by describing how the new jet parked behind him was a gift from the Qatari royal family.

“When you’re given gifts, you take ’em, right?” Trump told the crowd in Bullhead City. “When they give you a 747, you say two words: ‘Thank you.’”

Trump’s comments came during the second and final day of a Western swing, part of a midterm road show designed to rally the Republican Party ahead of Nov. 3 elections that will determine control of Congress. His first stop was Alaska on Tuesday, where he announced Taiwan would purchase gas from a proposed mega-gas project there and pardoned two Alaskans who had pleaded guilty in 2022 to Clean Air Act violations.

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The president continued to bestow favours in Montana, where he announced a new military testing range that had been sought by the state’s Republicans.

“Montana will help ensure the American military always reigns supreme,” he said.

As Americans grapple with persistent concerns about the cost of living, Trump often reverts to some of his personal priorities, including renovation projects in Washington or trappings of the presidency, including the luxury jet.

Trump accepted the new plane last year despite strong criticism, including from some of his staunchest Republican supporters.

Trump zeroes in on guns while campaigning in Montana

Trump’s visit to Western Montana’s 1st District was aimed at boosting House candidate Aaron Flint, a former aide to retiring Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke, who was Interior secretary in Trump’s first-term Cabinet.

Flint’s opponent is Sam Forstag, a Democratic labour union leader and Forest Service smokejumper, a specialized firefighter who gets to fires by aircraft and parachute.

Forstag has said he supports expanding voluntary safe storage of firearms for people in a mental health crisis, but he describes himself as a gun rights champion and he says firearms are relied upon in Montana for hunting and staying safe.

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Trump, speaking to a crowd of his supporters in a horse show arena in Kalispell, near Glacier National Park, called Forstag “extreme” and said Democrats “will take your guns away if we don’t keep it going.”

He noted that Republican candidates Kurt Alme, running for the Senate, and Aaron Flint, running for the House, have earned top ratings from the National Rifle Association.

Meanwhile, Democratic Senate candidate Alani Bankhead has earned an F, and Forstag was given a question mark by the NRA because he “refused to fill out a form,” Trump said.

He did not mention Seth Bodnar, the independent in the Montana Senate race who is backed by top Democrats in the state.

Luxury Air Force One serves as backdrop and speech fodder

In Arizona, soaring music played as the former Qatari jet flew low over the local airport where supporters awaited Trump in the heat. The president, wearing his signature red baseball cap, emerged with a wave and a fist bump and slowly descended the stairs as speakers blasted Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” the song that marks Trump’s entrance at campaign events.

Air Force One, now wearing Trump’s new red, white, blue and gold paint scheme, and mountains filled the background as he started speaking about how he learned that the Qataris had “the best of all the 747s.” He described to the crowd, which was standing in the sun at a rural desert airport to hear him speak, how he called Qatar’s emir and asked to borrow the aircraft before the leader instead offered it as a gift.

Mohave County, where Bullhead City is located, has higher poverty and unemployment rates than the state and nation, with a lower per-capita income, according to Census and state unemployment data.

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Trump also spoke extensively about his aesthetic flourishes around Washington: the White House ballroom that is under construction and a just-completed helipad on the South Lawn, along with a triumphal arch he has planned for the capital city.

“The fake news media doesn’t talk about how well we’re doing” as a country, Trump said. Journalists ask him instead about “affordability,” he said, pronouncing the word in a dismissive tone.

Trump travelled to Arizona to rally support for Rep. Andy Biggs, who is seeking to defeat Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. Republicans running in the state’s two competitive U.S. House districts, Jay Feely and Rep. Juan Ciscomani, did not attend the event.

GOP strategy is shifting as Election Day nears

With under three weeks left in the campaign, the Western swing comes as Trump’s party has begun retreating from a handful of battleground U.S. House races and Democrats aim to raise money for candidates who seemed like long shots earlier this year.

The shifting money in the final weeks of midterm campaigns reflects an increasingly defensive posture by Republicans, who have already trimmed their expectations in U.S. Senate races, and new aggression from Democrats, who are trying to capitalize on Trump’s low public approval.

Trump has kept up a brisk pace of hour-plus-long rallies – new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia called it a “midterm blitz” – in his effort to stem expected Republican losses and fight a historical trend in which the president’s party typically loses seats in elections halfway through their term in the White House.

Trump twice won Arizona, in 2016 and 2024, but lost the state in 2020. Montana’s 1st District is slightly less Republican overall than the state, which voted for Trump by double digits in each of his three presidential campaigns.

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Arizona is the lone swing state in recent stops

His other visits so far in October have taken him into traditionally solid Republican territory – Alabama, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas – as he weathers low approval ratings, rising costs and the Iran war.

Arizona stands out as the lone swing state among the president’s recent stops, though the airport rally was in a county Trump won with 78% of the vote in 2024.

Biggs has been a stalwart ally of the president and assisted Trump’s attempt to block certification by the House of Trump’s 2020 election defeat. A one-time head of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, he’s represented a safe GOP seat since winning election in 2016.

He faces Hobbs, who narrowly defeated Republican Kari Lake in the governor’s race four years ago. Arizona was long a GOP stronghold, and registered Republicans still outnumber Democrats and independents by a comfortable margin, but voters have repeatedly rejected Trump allies and handed the state’s top offices to Democrats.

Trump said Biggs “will always stand with law enforcement” and took aim at Hobbs, who he said “does the bidding of the cartels” on the U.S.-Mexico border. Hobbs counters that she has strengthened the border by sending National Guard troops there and has boosted local law enforcement funding.