Senior administration officials orchestrated an elaborate deception to secretly move President Trump out of Turkey during last month’s NATO summit, transporting him via an airport catering container onto a military jet after determining that a threat against him and Air Force One from Iran was credible, according to two senior U.S. officials who spoke Monday.
Publicly, Trump and other officials had said he would depart Turkey on July 8 aboard an older version of Air Force One rather than the luxury 747-8 donated by Qatar that had carried him there. Trump told reporters at the time he was making the switch “for old time’s sake.”
He boarded the older aircraft through its left-side door in full view of cameras, and news organizations, including The New York Times, reported that he had flown on it to Britain, where he then switched back to the newer jet. At the time, reporting attributed the decision partly to security concerns about the Qatari-donated plane, which lacked all the defensive capabilities of older presidential aircraft.
But according to one of the officials, rather than actually flying out aboard that older, powder-blue modified 747, Trump was quietly moved off the plane through a catering container lifted to the side opposite where traveling journalists boarded. He was then taken to a third aircraft, which secretly carried him to Britain, according to the official familiar with the matter.
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Reporters aboard the older Air Force One were never told that Trump hadn’t actually traveled with them from Turkey to a British air base, unknowingly serving, along with some White House staff, as decoys in the operation. After Trump arrived in Britain, he was secretly transferred back onto the older aircraft before disembarking in view of reporters and walking across the tarmac to board the Qatari-donated jet for the return flight to Washington.
The plan appears to have come together within hours after officials concluded the Iranian threat against Trump was credible, arriving after years of threats from Iran against him and amid the war he launched against the country earlier this year. It represents an unusual case of the public being actively misled about a sitting president’s location.
Officials had not previously acknowledged that Trump wasn’t where they’d claimed. The operation was first reported by The Washington Post, which identified the aircraft that secretly carried Trump to Britain as a C-32A, a military variant of the Boeing 757.
It remains rare for presidents to travel separated from the press pool typically assigned to accompany or track them without at least general awareness of the president’s location. Precedent exists for extraordinary circumstances, such as President George W. Bush traveling with a reduced press pool in the chaotic hours following the September 11 attacks, and presidents, Trump included, have previously traveled into active war zones alongside reporters.
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Donald Mihalek, a former Secret Service agent who served on protective details for both Bush and President Obama, said the Secret Service has previously used decoy motorcades and flights to move presidents covertly.
“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,” Mihalek said, adding that the agency has always prioritized presidential security over public transparency. “The agency is not the agency of public affairs. The agency is the agency of the Secret Service. Their number one job is to keep the president safe.”
In this instance, the threat led the White House to deliberately mislead reporters covering Trump, allowing them to report that he was aboard a plane being used purely as a decoy.
After The Times reported last month on security shortcomings with the Qatari jet amid concerns over the Iranian threat, White House communications director Steven Cheung appeared to hint that deception had played a role in Trump’s departure from Turkey, saying at the time that America has many enemies focused on the president and that the administration uses every tool available, “including distraction and misdirection,” to address such threats.
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According to people familiar with the sequence of events, the threat wasn’t specific to the Qatari jet itself; rather, Trump was considered a target regardless of which aircraft he was traveling on, as The Times had previously reported.
Trump was briefed on the threat while still in Turkey, and a plan was quickly developed involving a small circle of senior officials, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to the official with knowledge of the operation.
The Defense Department and a spokesperson for General Caine referred questions to the White House on Monday. The White House reissued Cheung’s earlier statement from the week of the NATO summit, this time omitting the phrase about “distraction and misdirection.” The officials who described the deception spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the security matter.
When Trump arrived at the airport to depart Turkey, a pre-positioned camera captured him boarding the older Air Force One, while journalists traveling with him, entering through lower rear steps, caught only a brief glimpse of him. A press pool report at the time noted that journalists had been instructed to keep their cabin window shades closed as the plane took off.
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The older aircraft landed at Mildenhall military base in England at 10:16 p.m., according to a pool report, with Trump reportedly stepping off 40 minutes later. Unbeknownst to reporters, Trump had actually been driven by vehicle from the third plane he’d secretly arrived on to the older Air Force One, boarding through a separate entrance before descending the upper left-side stairs as he typically would, according to the U.S. official.
From there, he walked to the Qatari jet as the small press contingent that had traveled on the older aircraft looked on, before he and the pool boarded the newer plane together for the flight back to Washington.
Asked by reporters during that return flight why they had flown to England aboard the older Air Force One, Trump claimed he wanted troops stationed at the British base to see the newer aircraft. Pressed on why window shades had been ordered closed during the flight from Turkey, he said he wasn’t aware of any specific threat but described himself as facing constant danger from Iran, telling reporters, “I’m number one on their list, before you. But if I go, you go. Right?”
Trump and several of his advisers have faced threats from Iran for years, particularly following his first-term order to kill senior Iranian commander Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
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During the 2024 campaign, Trump’s advisers privately told allies they had received intelligence suggesting Iran still hoped to harm him, prompting occasional use of decoy aircraft at the time, with staff sometimes placing the candidate on a secret jet without notifying media while his own plane flew separately.
The Biden administration increased Trump’s security that summer following new intelligence about plots against him, shortly before he survived an unrelated assassination attempt at an outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, followed by a second unrelated attempt in September 2024.
That collective pattern of threats, ranging from a prosecuted murder-for-hire plot tied to an Iranian proxy to hacking attempts targeting campaign officials’ accounts, created a climate of heightened vigilance around the candidate and his team, fostering caution and at times suspicion that shaped interactions with the Biden administration, which controlled Secret Service resource allocation, as well as with media and other officials.
After The Times’ reporting on the security concerns in Turkey and the Qatari jet’s more limited defensive capabilities, Trump reacted with anger over the leaks.
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The Justice Department subsequently issued grand jury subpoenas to reporters connected to the stories, as well as some of their family members, subpoenas that were later withdrawn after a federal judge criticized the process used to obtain them.
According to multiple officials, Trump has continued expressing frustration over information emerging from within his own government that contradicts his public statements, particularly regarding the war with Iran that he launched on February 28.
