President Donald Trump is addressing reports claiming he secretly switched planes last month due to a possible threat.
At the time, Trump was departing July’s NATO summit amid a credible threat from Iran. It was reported that Trump left his staff — which included Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, plus reporters — on an old Air Force One plane, used as a decoy. While Rubio and Bessent knew, other staff and press reportedly weren’t told about the switch. And they most certainly were not aware of the potential threat.
Since news of the switch became public, media personnel have expressed fears. They shared concerns over staff seemingly being left vulnerable to a perceived threat. However, officials now claim the decoy Air Force One plane was still protected despite Trump secretly sneaking off. On Wednesday (August 12), a senior Trump administration official told Fox News that the AF1 plane that Trump snuck off of was protected by U.S. fighter jets on its flight to the United Kingdom.
When a Secret Service agent instructed those aboard AF1 to keep their window shades down — during takeoff and throughout the flight from Ankara, Turkey — it was to prevent them from seeing the fighter jets escorting them.
Donald Trump Addresses Secret Plane Switch In Turkey
Meanwhile, Trump was secretly flying aboard a separate military jet, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also boarded. Video has since surfaced of the secret exchange. Trump used an airport catering truck to conduct the swap. Trump snuck onto a smaller U.S. military aircraft using the catering truck as a cover and an older Air Force One jet as a decoy.
On Tuesday evening (August 11), Trump further explained the switch as it became public. He shared the news with reporters after traveling to Geneva, Ohio for the Freedom 250 Patriot Games. He said:
“Well, it’s only up to the Secret Service; I just follow what they’d like to do. So, I go by the Secret Service and the military. They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane, equal safety — but they wanted me to do it, so I do it. I do what they say.”
When asked about the perceived threat, he brushed it off. He said:
“I guess there was a threat out there. I didn’t really ask too much about it. I get a lot of threats. I have a lot of threats that you don’t know about. Any consequential president has a lot of threats. Non-consequential presidents don’t get threats. And I think that I may be the most consequential president. Because nobody’s done more than me in a period of almost six years. There’s nobody.”
When asked if he was “worried about a shoulder-fired missile,” Trump said, “I don’t worry about anything, to be honest. Whatever it is, you know, my attitude: Whatever.”
Trump also claimed he thought the jet he ended up on faced greater danger than Air Force One. He said, “I think actually the plane that I flew on was at greater risk. I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for.”
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