Trump: The plane I was to board from Turkey was at greater risk

U.S. President Donald Trump said he slipped out of the presidential aircraft, Air Force One, in Turkey because the Secret Service and the military wanted him to board another plane due to a threat. Trump added, “I follow the instructions of the Secret Service and the military, and they wanted me to travel on another flight, on another plane,” referring to what happened after his visit to Turkey last month. His comments corroborated a report first published by The Washington Post, which stated that Trump hid in a catering container at the airport to sneak onto another plane, while Air Force One, filled with White House officials, security and support staff, and journalists, departed Turkish airspace as a decoy, in anticipation of Iran carrying out a credible threat to launch an attack. Trump told reporters after a trip to Ohio, “I can only do what they tell me to do,” adding that he does not trust Iran. Trump had boarded the recently refurbished presidential aircraft, provided by Qatar, bound for Ankara to attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit, but unexpectedly boarded an older presidential aircraft when leaving the country, a move that raised questions about the security of the new plane. Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform before leaving Ankara that he would use the older, light-blue presidential aircraft to travel from Ankara to Royal Air Force Mildenhall in the United Kingdom, while the new plane remained at the base so that U.S. military personnel there could inspect it. The Washington Post, citing a U.S. official familiar with the operation and documents reviewed by the newspaper that support the account, reported that after Trump boarded the old Air Force One in front of cameras in Ankara, he was secretly transported via a catering truck to a smaller aircraft, a C-32A belonging to the U.S. Air Force. The newspaper said this camouflage operation was in response to a credible threat targeting Trump, and a similar operation took place in 2000, when former President Bill Clinton boarded a business-jet-style aircraft without distinctive markings to travel to Pakistan, while his official presidential plane was sent away to serve as a decoy. In the most recent incident, journalists who believed they were traveling with Trump on the old Air Force One—which was actually used as a decoy—were instructed to keep the curtains in the press cabin closed, and the newspaper noted that some White House staff also believed the president was aboard the plane.