United States President Donald Trump has confirmed that security officials moved him off Air Force One in Turkey on July 8 because of an Iranian threat, leaving journalists and staff to fly out aboard the aircraft as a decoy.
Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on August 11, he said the decision had been taken by the Secret Service and the military. “They wanted me to go on a different flight, different plane,” Trump said.
He added that he had not asked for details about the threat and that he received a great many of them. He said the episode had not worried him.
His account confirmed a report published by The Washington Post on August 10 that the President had been driven across the tarmac at Ankara airport inside a catering truck.
Trump then boarded an Air Force C-32A, a modified Boeing 757. The older Boeing 747 serving as Air Force One took off carrying White House officials, security staff and reporters who believed he was on board.
Journalists in the press cabin were told to keep their window shades down for take-off. The jet first appeared on radar without a call sign, the newspaper said.
Trump rejoined the group at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, eastern England, slipping back on to the decoy aircraft and then disembarking in front of the cameras.
He had arrived at the NATO summit in Ankara aboard a Boeing 747-8 donated by Qatar, a jet that lacks some of the missile detection and countermeasure systems fitted to the older presidential aircraft.
Intelligence officials had identified a specific Iranian threat to the President’s movements after American strikes on Iranian targets. Trump left the Turkish capital shortly before Washington resumed its bombing campaign.
The White House said at the time that he had departed aboard the older Air Force One. The Secret Service declined to comment and the Air Force referred questions to the White House.
White House communications director Steven Cheung said the new Air Force One carried high-level security protocols that ensured the safety of the President and his staff.
The White House Correspondents’ Association said its president, Jacqui Heinrich, had met administration officials on August 11 to press for a protocol covering extraordinary security circumstances.
She said the group accepted that genuine threats could limit what was shared with reporters in real time, though it wanted press safety and independent coverage protected.
Trump rejected the suggestion that those left behind had been endangered, saying he believed the plane he travelled on carried the greater risk.
