Last night the Washington Post reported that the US Secret Service had gone to unusual lengths to get President Trump out of Turkey last month after the Iranians made a credible threat to kill him.
You may recall that at the last moment Trump announced he would not be flying out on the Qatar-gifted plane he had arrived on and which he has been using as Air Force One. Instead, he and the press would be flying on the older blue and white Air Force One. But that turned out to be a ruse.
In fact, Trump walked off that plane through a rear door and was placed in another military plane without anyone knowing.
Imagery captured by the news media at the Turkish airport shows a staircase on one side of the legacy Air Force One and the catering truck on the other, with its container elevated to the level of the plane. Trump arrived in a limousine, climbed the staircase and waved toward the tarmac as he boarded, video shows.
A few minutes later, as members of the White House press corps boarded near the back of the plane, a man in a suit entered the catering truck’s cab, according to media pool video of the departure process. The container was lowered into the bed of the vehicle, which then pulled away from Air Force One and drove to the smaller C-32A nearby, the video appears to show...
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boarded the C-32A separately using external stairs, part of an attempt to make the flight appear typical, according to the U.S. official and other materials reviewed by The Post. Hegseth flew with Trump to Britain on the same plane, this person said.
As journalists boarded the legacy Air Force One, White House staff directed them to close their window shades, according to a media pool report.
The second plane, the one that Trump and Hegseth were actually on, wasn't far away. Presumably the journalists were asked to close their shades so they wouldn't catch a glimpse of Trump being moved from one plane to the other.
Readers at the Post are naturally outraged and are calling Trump a coward, a liar, a loser, etc. How dare the Secret Service prioritize the safety of the President! Generally, you get the impression many of the readers there would be happier if the Iranians had succeeded. But the story makes a point of saying this isn't a new, Trump-specific operation. The Secret Service has done this before.
One such mission occurred in March 2000, when President Bill Clinton visited Pakistan. With television cameras recording in Islamabad, Clinton disembarked from a plain white jet that followed the blue-and-white Air Force One, clarifying where he had been.
There have been other times in the last 30 years when Air Force One served as a decoy for the president because of a serious threat or because he was flying to a dangerous location, another U.S. official said, declining to elaborate. The legacy jet is highly secure, but also highly visible, so putting the president on an alternate plane instead can be considered safer, that former official said.
The NY Times published an article soon after the Post did last night which also suggests this is far from the first time this has been done.
Donald Mihalek, a former Secret Service agent who worked in the protective details for Mr. Bush and President Barack Obama, said the Secret Service has used decoy motorcades and flights in the past to move presidents secretly.
“Anytime the president is in a theater where there’s potential combat danger, the Secret Service has employed protective counter measures including the use of a decoy,” Mr. Mihalek said...
“The agency is not the agency of public affairs,” he said. “The agency is the agency of the Secret Service. Their number one job is to keep the president safe.”
There's video of the operation which, in hindsight, makes it pretty obvious how it was done.
My favorite part: This Turkish catering truck nonchalantly moving from Air Force One to the other plane https://t.co/vQSoncQw9f pic.twitter.com/Ob5r1hxSwL
— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) August 11, 2026
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