Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed on Wednesday that the memorandum of understanding between the Trump administration and Qatar for the gift of a luxury jet worth $400 million to join the Air Force One fleet has not been completed and signed.

Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine were pressed repeatedly on the terms of the contract allowing for the U.S. to formally accept the Boeing 747 jumbo jet from Qatar while testifying before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee on the Pentagon’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget. The two largely declined to answer questions on the subject given the public setting, though the defense secretary acknowledged that the MOU was still being worked on.

“Any specifics about future aircraft that could be Air Force One can’t be discussed here, but there is a conversation about a memorandum of understanding. A memorandum of understanding remains to be signed,” Hegseth said in response to Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) asking if the U.S. was currently in possession of the jet.

Hegseth declined to answer Reed’s subsequent questions about the price of the contract to reconfigure the aircraft, saying he would provide it to the senator’s office but could not divulge that information in public. He offered the same response when Reed asked about the delivery time for the reconfiguration contract. 

Reed pointed out that the terms of the contract originally signed with Boeing to deliver the next Air Force One jets were public while criticizing the secrecy around this deal. 

“The Boeing information was public knowledge — the delivery date, the cost, the course overruns — but this is not, because this is not only a bad deal for the American public, it is just gratifying the presidency, that’s all it is,” Reed said.

Later in the hearing, Hegseth again confirmed to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) that the MOU was still not signed. The Connecticut senator then pressed the defense secretary on the need for the Qatari jet, noting that the extensive modifications and security enhancements may keep it from being usable before Boeing’s new fleet of Air Force Ones are ready in 2028. 

“It doesn’t stand to reason that you will be able to retrofit the plane from Qatar much sooner than 2028 so I’m trying to understand what the gap is that we’re trying to fill. If this contract ends up being a half a billion dollars and the gap only ends up being six months, that doesn’t sound like a wise investment for this committee to make,” Murphy said.

Hegseth replied by pointing to the repeated delays from Boeing in delivering on their new fleet. “I don’t know that’s a firm fixed date yet, unfortunately, that can be counted on,” Hegseth said.

A senior Air Force official testified at a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing last month that Boeing had told the service that it could potentially deliver the fleet by 2027 if certain requirements were lifted.

After Hegseth told Murphy it was his understanding that the plane would be transferred to Trump’s presidential library at the conclusion of his term, the Connecticut senator replied: “Why would we ask the American taxpayer to spend upwards of $1 billion on a plane that would then only be used for a handful of months and then transferred directly to the president?”

Hegseth emphasized the importance of the modifications to “ensure the safety and security of the president of the United States,” but did not address Murphy’s question directly. 

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) pressed Hegseth on whether the Department of Defense or the Qataris initiated conversations about the jet and how the transaction came to be. Hegseth said he would need to “go back and review” the details and did not go into specifics, to which Schatz asked, “I think it kind of matters who’s asking, doesn’t it?”

“I think this is illegal and unconstitutional and I won’t rant about that, but I actually think from the standpoint of our collective responsibilities it very much matters what the paper flow was. Who started these conversations? Did it come out of the White House, did it come out of the secretary of state or the president or the SEC Def [secretary of defense] or at a lower level or ambassadors?” Schatz asked. 

“We’re entitled to know, because we can agree or disagree about the propriety of this, but my basic request of you is that if we’re going to disagree, let’s disagree with the same set of facts. Let’s have the documentation on the Qatari aircraft,” he continued.