President Donald Trump stated on August 11 that he was acting strictly on the advice of the Secret Service when he was covertly transported off Air Force One inside a catering container and flown out of Turkey on a different military aircraft. The elaborate ruse was executed to protect the president from a potential safety threat during a recent international trip.
"It's up to Secret Service. I just follow what they'd like to do. I go by Secret Service and the military," Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews after returning from Ohio. "They wanted me to go on a different plane, a different plane, uh, equal safety, but they wanted me to do it, so I do it."
The bait-and-switch operation took place on July 8. At the time, Trump announced he was making an unscheduled stop in the United Kingdom to drop off an older Air Force One aircraft while returning from a NATO summit. He then secretly boarded a third plane to travel to England, leaving reporters and several White House staff members to fly on the original plane, effectively serving as decoy passengers. When questioned about the safety of those left on the decoy plane, Trump argued that his actual flight carried a higher risk. "I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plane I think that we, that they would be more likely to go for," he said.
Trump had originally arrived at the summit in Turkey aboard a red, white, and blue jet gifted by Qatar, which his administration had modified to function as a replacement Air Force One. Upon departure, he was seen boarding the powder-blue plane that he had previously announced his administration would be retiring. However, after boarding, Trump was secretly transferred to another military jet, as reported by The Washington Post and The New York Times. He flew on that secondary military aircraft from Turkey to the Royal Air Force Mildenhall U.S. Air Force Base in Suffolk, England. He is believed to have switched back to the Qatari Boeing 747-B before flying from England to Joint Base Andrews near Washington, D.C.
When asked if the plane swap surprised him, Trump noted that he faces numerous security threats. "I have a lot of threats that you don't know about," Trump remarked. "Any consequential presidents have a lot of threats. Non-consequential presidents don't get threatened. And I think that I may be the most. Nobody’s done more than me in almost six years."
The covert operation was kept so secret that even some White House aides were left entirely in the dark. Neither the White House nor the Secret Service responded to requests for comment regarding the plane swap. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who accompanied Trump to the NATO summit, ignored questions about the incident during an August 11 appearance, and the State Department did not respond to inquiries about which plane he took.
The security swap between the highly recognizable American jet and the Qatari aircraft was implemented as a precaution after Trump ended a ceasefire with Iran, which had been established following attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump had openly remarked at the NATO summit, "I'm number one on the kill list for Iran." A source familiar with the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity, noted that the Secret Service had strongly urged the White House to depart Turkey on the older plane. Additionally, U.S. officials were concerned about potential attacks by Iranian proxy forces, with Israel relaying intelligence that the aircraft could be targeted by shoulder-fired missiles, according to the Wall Street Journal. What remained unknown to the public at the time was that Trump was not on either of the primary planes.
Since the incident, Trump has continued to fly on both the Qatari-gifted jet and the older powder-blue planes. On August 9, he took a brief flight from the Morristown airport near his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey to Joint Base Andrews using the smaller of the two traditional powder-blue Air Force One aircraft. Earlier that weekend, Trump also altered his standard flight path by landing at Newark Airport on his way to the golf club.
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