Vice President JD Vance is shutting down the news about a Qatari Air Force facility being built in Idaho — despite Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth making the announcement just two days prior.
Hegseth’s announcement ignited a whirlwind of backlash among many factions, including from Trump’s MAGA base supporters.
While appearing Sunday morning on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” host Maria Bartiromo asked Vance about the facility, questioning what Qatar is planning to develop in Idaho. Vance called Hegseth’s announcement a “fake story.”
“Yeah, I saw some reporting about this, Maria. I actually talked to the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, this morning,” Vance said. “This is largely a fake story. We continue to have with countries that we work with, we have relationships where sometimes their pilots work on our bases, sometimes that we train together, sometimes we work together in other ways.”
Vance went on to blame “misreporting” for the confusion over the so-called facility.
“The reporting that somehow there’s going to be a Qatari base on United States soil, that’s just not true,” he explained. “We are continuing to work with a number of our Arab friends to ensure that we are able to enforce this peace, but we’re not going to let a foreign country have an actual base on American soil.”
Vance added: “So there’s a bit of misreporting on that, as there often is, as you know, Maria.”
Hegseth made the announcement about the facility during a meeting with the Qatari defense minister, Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on Oct. 10.
“I’m also proud that today we’re announcing we’re signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emeri Air Force facility at the Mountain Home Airbase in Idaho,” Hegseth said. “The location will host a contingent of Qatari F-15s and pilots.”
Hegseth added at the time that the facility will “enhance our combined training, increase lethality” and “interoperability” between nations.
Later that day, Hegseth made an “important clarification” about his statement in an X post.
“The U.S. military has a long-standing partnership w/ Qatar, including today’s announced cooperation w/ F-15QA aircraft,” he wrote. “However, to be clear, Qatar will not have their own base in the United States—nor anything like a base. We control the existing base, like we do with all partners.”
Meanwhile, conservative political activist and staunch Trump ally, Laura Loomer, complained about the facility in a series of X posts, calling it “an abomination.”
“WTF IS AMERICA FIRST ABOUT ALLOWING QATAR TO HAVE A MILITARY BASE ON US SOIL? This is an abomination. So much for ‘Make America Safe Again,’” she wrote Friday, referencing Trump’s “America First” agenda.
Loomer added: “By letting funders of HAMAS and the Muslim Brotherhood have a military base on US soil. Un fucking believable. Just unbelievable.”
Steve Bannon, who served as White House chief strategist during Trump’s first term, also argued to Newsweek that there “should never be a military base of a foreign power on the sacred soil of America.”