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White House Memo
The president of South Africa’s wisecrack about a free plane spoke volumes.
May 22, 2025, 5:07 p.m. ET
It has been said that the best jokes are dangerous because they are in some way truthful.
On Wednesday, a dangerous joke was told in the Oval Office. The South African president turned to the American president and said: “I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you.”
There was a lot packed into this one little aperçu. Nothing has so succinctly summed up the way the rest of the world feels it must now approach America as these 10 words.
I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you.
The context was lost on no one. Earlier that day, the U.S. government had, under President Trump’s directive, finally and officially accepted the free jumbo jet from Qatar that had become the object of so much controversy and intrigue. Now it had also become a punchline.
Mr. Trump, for his part, took it mostly in stride. “I wish you did” have a plane to offer up, he said with a touch of insouciance. “I’d take it. If your country offered the U.S. Air Force a plane, I would take it.”
Yes, the man who sits in the gold-colored office likes his golden gifts. It is not as though South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, failed to understand this. He didn’t show up with a 747 jetliner, but he did bring a 30-pound book with pictures of South African golf courses. (“I brought you a really fantastic golf book.”) He also brought along a billionaire South African businessman and a few golfers as guests, to appeal to Mr. Trump’s sensibilities.
No plane? No matter. There are many ways to cultivate favor with this billionaire president.
One could always purchase a membership to one of Mr. Trump’s private clubs. The cost to join has never been higher. The initiation fee for Mar-a-Lago is $1 million, double what it was when Mr. Trump was last in office, according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal. Republican officials now hold more events at Mr. Trump’s clubs than ever before.
