INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
the airport runway here a brilliant orange when Air Force One touched down Saturday evening and President Donald Trump roared into his
latest campaign rally.Thousands of red-capped supporters stood on their tippy toes, craned their necks and held their cellphone cameras
aloft, awestruck as the presidential aircraft taxied toward the rally stage
Tina Turner's "Simply the Best" blared on the loudspeakers
The iconic plane's soft blue-and-white paint shimmered in the glow of massive flood lights
A military steward opened a side door
And voila! The commander in chief stepped forward and waved hello."Air Force One is the best plane in the world," said John Weiler, 74, a
local Republican Party officer who was downright giddy as he peered through his binoculars to bear witness
"It's known throughout the world
That plane lands, they know America has landed."For Jerrell Lynchard, 18, a college freshman at Pensacola State College, the scene was "one
of those things you see in photos, but never think you'll see in real life
It was that 'there-it-is' moment."There-it-is moments are what Trump been trying to orchestrate as the showman president dashes across the
country in the final days before Tuesday's midterm elections
A consummate salesman, Trump has been using Air Force One as a prop at his "Make America Great Again" rallies to pitch voters to keep
Congress in Republican hands.The presidential aircraft is both a raw illustration of the power of incumbency and a reminder of Trump's
dominant campaign theme: strength.Donald Trump at a campaign rally at Pensacola International Airport (Reuters)"We will never give in,"
Trump told the rapt crowd in Pensacola, his plane parked at his side
And we will always fight on to victory - always because we are America and our hearts bleed red, white and blue."Trump is hardly the first
president to use Air Force One as an element of political stagecraft
For decades, presidents have held rallies on airport tarmacs - party out of efficiency, eliminating the need for a motorcade from the
airport to the arena, which saves both driving time for the president and traffic headaches for locals.Both of Trump's immediate
predecessors, Barack Obama and George W
Bush, used Air Force One at some of their rallies
Bush even arrived at a stadium during his 2004 re-election campaign aboard Marine One, with the presidential helicopter landing in the
middle of a baseball field before thousands of supporters.But Trump has been using his plane with particularly high frequency in the home
stretch of the midterm campaign
It was a staging element for rallies Saturday in Pensacola and Belgrade, Montana; Friday in Huntington, West Virginia; and Thursday in
Columbia, Missouri.Earlier this month, Trump and Republican Senate candidate Martha McSally arrived aboard Marine One at a rally in Mesa,
Arizona, waving to the crowd as they stepped off the dramatically-lit helicopter and walked onto the stage.Trump's use of Air Force One is
raising questions about the ethics and protocol of using a military asset for political purposes
But ethics experts said there is no law preventing Trump from campaigning within view of the plane
And they note that the president, as well as the vice president, is exempt from the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from engaging in
political activity."It's a question of appearance," said Richard W
Painter, ethics czar in the Bush White House and an outspoken critic of Trump's ethics practices
"It's highly inappropriate, but there's nobody who can go sanction him for standing in front of the plane to give a political speech
It's not illegal."Painter said the general protocol should be to move the plane out of view of the rally when the president does a political
event on a tarmac because it is an Air Force jet and the military is supposed to be apolitical and never endorse candidates."It's a gray
area," said Walter Shaub, a former director of the U.S
Office of Government Ethics and another vocal Trump critic
"It's certainly troubling to use federal property as a prop But I think you'd be hard pressed to make a case of any actual violation of law
as long as they are reimbursing."The government requires reimbursement - such as from Trump's campaign or the Republican National Committee
- for costs associated with the president's travel to and from political events.Donald Trump was accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence at
Pensacola International AirportThe president does not have the option of flying commercial or using his personal plane for political events
He is required to fly Air Force One for all of his travel, including vacations, because of the security and communications systems
aboard.During the 2016 campaign, Trump used his personal Boeing 757 - branded Trump Force One - at his rallies, pulling the plane up to near
the stage to great fanfare, often with the dramatic soundtrack of Harrison Ford's "Air Force One" movie playing.But in February 2017, when
Trump held his first airport hangar rally as president, the White House said it would not use Air Force One "in the background as a
prop."That policy was clearly dropped as the president's campaigning picked up pace, however
Trump's campaign team changed the location of his rally earlier this month in Missoula, Mont., to ensure video footage and pictures of the
event would feature Air Force One behind the president as he spoke, according to a report in the Missoulian newspaper.Trump's Air Force One
arrivals vary by location
Usually he flies the Boeing 747 jumbo jet, with its distinctive hump at the nose, but when airport runways are not long enough to
accommodate the big bird he takes a smaller Boeing 757 model.That was the plane he was flying Thursday night in Columbia when an
announcement was made at the Trump rally: "Columbia Tower, Air Force One is on final descent."Moments later, the plane was wheels down,
roaring as it zoomed past the hangar where thousands of supporters were snapping pictures and recording video on their phones
The "Air Force One" soundtrack played, and then Trump disembarked to the beat of Rihanna's dance anthem "Let's Get Loud."Supporters at
campaign rally, ahead of midterm elections, at Pensacola International Airport in FloridaThe next day in Huntington, the crowd cheered as
Air Force One approached the rally stage to the strains of John Denver's "Take me Home, Country Roads."And then Saturday in Montana, Air
Force One landed at Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport in stunning fashion
The jet touched down against the picturesque backdrop of jagged mountains and the thunderous applause of Trump's fans."I had a tear in my
eye," Isabelle Wieseler, 20
"I grew up watching movies of the president and Air Force One and this was nothing like that
This was so much more powerful and nothing that I could have ever imagined."(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by
TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
