I have sometimes pondered the pivotal moment when money changes people forever. The answer is, without doubt, the acquisition of the private plane—it’s the moment when you leave the human race forever. And having just flown back on JetBlue Mosaic from the Dominican Republic, sitting next to an enormous Russian chomping plantain chips, I attest wholeheartedly that it’s a loss of connection not to be regretted.
So it is no surprise to me that Bill Clinton, in his new memoir Citizen: My Life After the White House, ascribes his dependence on Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane to the travel needs of the Clinton Foundation. Who else is going to put his Boeing 727 at the service of an ex-president to fly around to what our soon-to-be 47th president once called “shithole countries” than a pedophile like Epstein in desperate need of adding sheen to his slime? In 2002, Epstein picked up Clinton in Siberia on the “Lolita Express” and flew him to a U.S. naval base in Japan, which hardly sounds like the thrumming locus of nubile orgies.
The late TV legend Barbara Walters used to lament the necessity to vacation every year with the crass termagant CEO of a bra company just because said termagant happened to own her own plane. Most of Henry Kissinger’s inner circle was dictated by who could fly him where and when. Knowing this, the host of any speaking invitation had to sleuth out some ponderous plutocrat to fly him from New York to Stuttgart, Germany, to keynote at a conference, only to be told by Henry that his flying host, too, required a “role” on the agenda.
The question of who an ex-president is going to scare up to transport him (or her. . . hah, as if) round the world in the manner he’s been accustomed to is a knotty dilemma that confronts every departing POTUS, or CEO, of any mighty corporation. A leading M&A lawyer once told me that corporate merger negotiations often run aground on a vague-sounding contractual term known as “the social issues.” The social issues are, primarily, the private plane. Can the exiting big shot still have use of it? How often? With how many co-passengers? No plane, no deal.
Historians searching for the real reason the Bidens clung to power too long may look no further than the looming loss of Air Force One. After flying private a few times with gilded friends, I am convinced it’s the single most seductive experience in the world. You realize there is no one you wouldn’t kill, betray, or sleep with to ensure a lifetime of luxe relief from the armpit of mass transit.
The Obamas won’t even cross the road these days—or in Barack’s case, play a round of golf at a prestigious club—without the use of a private plane belonging to one of their billionaire circle. It is worth examining who did and did not make the cut at his notorious Martha’s Vineyard 60th birthday party in 2021 based on whether or not the guest in question could provide future access to wings. Obama’s lofty insertion into the 2024 campaign in Pittsburgh—scolding black men for not showing enough enthusiasm for Kamala Harris because, “Well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that”—can be attributed, I submit, to too much time spent gazing down at the world from the window of a Gulfstream. I will never forget catching sight of former vice president Al Gore, a month after his loss in the 2000 election, trundling his own wheelie bag toward the passenger welcome area at Newark Airport.
Unfortunately for those in public life, the allure of—no, the addiction to—flying private is full of hazards, a true satanic temptation from the mountaintop. As Clinton says in Citizen: “The bottom line is, even though it allowed me to visit the work of my foundation, traveling on Epstein’s plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward.” You bet. Name me the purehearted billionaire who wants nothing in return. There is no greater hazard than the offer of a Gulfstream to foster dubious associations with influence-seeking Saudi potentates, borderline Kazakh shysters, odious oligarchs, and the rest of the cast of incorrigibles—and land you on the cover of the New York Post.
Tina Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk, and the founder of The Daily Beast. Her most recent book is The Palace Papers.
This article was first published in her must-read Substack diary, Fresh Hell. If you’re not a subscriber, you’re not doing it right.
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