Donald Trump secretly exited Air Force One in Türkiye last month after U.S. intelligence agencies received information about an alleged Iranian plot to shoot down the presidential aircraft, according to reports from The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. The incident has sparked controversy over whether journalists and White House staff left behind on the original plane were used as decoys.
Trump boarded the aircraft in Ankara in full view of television cameras following a NATO summit in July. Minutes later, he climbed off the plane and into an airport catering truck, the Post reported. He was then transported to a smaller Air Force C-32A while the original plane departed carrying members of the media and some White House staff.
The Intelligence and the Threat
The Wall Street Journal reported that the president was moved after the U.S. received intelligence from Israel about an Iranian threat to use shoulder-to-air missiles to target the plane. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also stayed on the original aircraft, according to an unnamed U.S. official who spoke to the Journal.
The White House hasn't challenged the reports. It said in a statement: "As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats."
Trump defended the decision, saying he believed the plane he travelled on was at "greater risk" than the decoy aircraft. "I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for," he said. He added that officials "wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane — equal safety, but they wanted me to do it, so I do it."
The president acknowledged the threat but downplayed its significance. "I just knew there was a threat out there, I didn't really ask too much about it. I get a lot of threats," he said, adding, "I have a lot of threats that you don't know about."
The Decoy Debate
David Axelrod told CNN that "everyone on that plane was a decoy," raising questions about whether the Secret Service put journalists and staff at risk. "If they felt that it was unsafe to be on the plane, then it was unsafe for everybody else to be on the plane as well," Axelrod said.
Robert McDonald, a University of New Haven protective travel expert and former Secret Service agent, defended the operation. "Everywhere the president travels overseas, there's always a backup plane," he said. McDonald insisted the decoy plane would've been well protected. "Were the press decoys on the other plane? I'm willing to bet there were plenty of assets in and around those two 747s flying from Turkey to England, whether it be Air Force, allied air forces, different capabilities," he said. "Nobody let the press dangle out there or the other members of the White House staff. They were all part of that plan."
Iran's Propaganda Victory
Asli Aydintasbas, a foreign policy expert at Washington's Brookings Institution, said the incident feels "more Netflix than reality." She noted that "the way they have developed such an elaborate scheme with a catering container leads me to the conclusion that it was a pretty serious threat."
Aydintasbas warned the story would likely be used for domestic propaganda in Iran, calling it "a huge publicity coup for the IRGC [Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]." She said: "Here is NATO, the strongest military alliance in the history of humankind, and the United States, the strongest military in human history, having to find a way of transporting the US president in an elaborate deception campaign. And I think that is pretty much something that Iranians would be proud of — that they can still instil fear in the West and in Washington."
Trump had flown to Ankara on a new Air Force One plane that had been gifted to the U.S. by Qatar. It was the jet's first international presidential trip. At the NATO summit, Trump announced he would depart Ankara on an older Air Force One plane "for old time's sake." It was later reported the newer Air Force One plane lacked some of the defensive security features of the older jet.
Why This Matters:
The incident exposes continuing gaps in presidential security infrastructure and highlights Iran's persistent threat to American leadership. While the Secret Service's protective measures appear to have worked, the fact that a foreign adversary forced such an elaborate ruse represents a propaganda victory for Tehran's hardliners. The newer Air Force One's lack of defensive capabilities raises questions about procurement decisions and readiness standards. For allies watching America's response to Iranian aggression, the episode demonstrates both U.S. intelligence capabilities through Israeli cooperation and the ongoing vulnerability of American assets to asymmetric threats. The willingness of Iranian proxies to target the president of the United States on NATO territory underscores the regime's escalating boldness and the need for robust deterrence measures that go beyond defensive maneuvers.