'I go by Secret Service': Trump explains Air Force One covert switch
WASHINGTON − President Donald Trump says he was acting on the advice of Secret Service when he was covertly carried off Air Force One in a catering container and flown out of Turkey on another military jet.
The ruse was a ploy designed to protect the president amid a possible threat to his safety on his trip to Turkey for a NATO summit.
"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 the Joint Base Andrews Aug. 11 as he returned from an event in 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 July 8 incident involved a bait-and-switch by Trump, who announced he was making an unscheduled stop in the United Kingdom to drop off an old Air Force One on his way back from the Turkey summit. He then took a third plane in secret to England. Reporters and some White House staff traveled on the original plane, effectively acting as decoys.
Asked about the safety of the passengers on the jet that was used as a decoy, Trump said the plane he flew on was at greater risk.
"I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plan I think that we, that they would be more likely to go for," he said.
Trump arrived at the summit in a red, white and blue Qatar-gifted jet that his administration had outfitted as a replacement Air Force One. He was seen boarding the powder-blue Air Force One he said his administration would be retiring from service when he departed.
But after he was on board, The Washington Post and the New York Times reported, he was secretly transferred to another military jet. He flew on that plane 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 jet, a Boeing 747-B, before he flew from England to Joint Base Andrews near Washington, DC.
Asked if he was surprised at having to switch planes, he said he is constantly under threat.
"I have a lot of threats that you don't know about," he said. "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 ruse reportedly left even some White House aides in the dark. Neither the White House nor the Secret Service responded to questions about the plane switch. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who traveled with Trump to NATO, ignored questions about the flights Aug. 11, and the State Department did not respond to requests for comment on which plane he took.
USA TODAY reported that the known swap between the Qatari jet and the highly recognizable American jet came as a security precaution after Trump terminated a ceasefire with Iran over attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
“I'm No. 1 on the kill list for Iran,” Trump told reporters at the NATO summit after he publicly announced his plans.
The Secret Service urged the White House to depart Turkey in the old plane, a source familiar with the matter told USA TODAY at the time, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.
The New York Times reported that U.S. officials were concerned about Iranian proxy forces attacking Air Force One. The threat was relayed to Trump by Israel, and it involved targeting the jetliner with shoulder-fired missiles, according to The Wall Street Journal.
What wasn't known at the time: that Trump was not on either plane.
Trump has flown on both the Qatari-gifted jet and the older blue and white planes since the incident. On Aug. 9 he took short flight from the Morristown airport near his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey to Joint Base Andrews on the smaller of two powder-blue planes that have traditionally served as Air Force One. Earlier in the weekend, on his way to the golf club, Trump landed at Newark Airport, changing up his regular flight pattern.
He was back on the red, white and blue Qatari-gifted jet Aug. 11 when he traveled to Ohio for a government-sponsored sporting event.
The president signed a peace deal with Iran in June, but it fell apart during the NATO summit, and the president ordered new strikes on Tehran that lasted nearly two weeks. The war has been in a holding pattern ever since as Trump has announced, and then called off, military strikes while negotiations to reopen the strait continued.
Contributing: Michael Loria and Joey Garrison