Trump Secretly Switched Planes Over Iranian Missile Threat
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- Donald Trump confirmed the Secret Service ordered him to switch aircraft after the NATO summit in Turkey on 8 July over a credible Iranian missile threat, saying: "I just have to do what they say," and adding, "I have a lot of threats that you don't know about."
- The ruse had Trump board Air Force One publicly at Ankara airport before slipping off into a catering truck elevated to plane level and transferring to a C-32A military aircraft, while journalists and cabinet members including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unknowingly remained on the decoy jet
- US intelligence had information about a person near the Ankara summit seen with a shoulder-fired missile, per the New York Times, prompting officials to flag a "credible Iranian threat" to fire a missile at the aircraft, according to CBS News
- Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth boarded the C-32A separately via external stairs to make the flight appear normal, while the C-32A used call sign "Reach 18" and the decoy kept the "AF1" designation; the press van was positioned too far back in the Ankara motorcade to photograph the actual boarding
- The plane swap came a day after the US renewed military strikes on Iran following a breakdown of Washington–Tehran negotiations to end the war
- Trump told reporters aboard the returning flight that journalists had been told to lower window shades "because you're probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleazebags we have to deal with," while the Committee to Protect Journalists said reporters should be informed of credible security threats so they "can make informed decisions about their safety."
Why it matters: The episode places a direct operational stamp on US-Iran hostilities: a sitting US president was deemed at credible risk of a missile strike on his aircraft, and cabinet officials plus an uninformed press pool were potentially exposed on the decoy plane Trump himself called "the plane they would be more likely to go for." The Committee to Protect Journalists' rebuke sharpens a press-safety question with implications for how the White House discloses credible threats to traveling reporters.
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