U.S. President Donald Trump has defended his decision to secretly swap planes following a NATO summit in Turkey last month, insisting the secondary aircraft he ultimately boarded faced a “greater risk” than Air Force One—a risk he now explicitly links to an active Iranian assassination threat that prompted the entire operational deception.
The switch, first reported by The Washington Post, saw the U.S. president transferred from Air Force One to a smaller military plane via an airport catering truck.
The covert maneuver was driven by specific security intelligence warning of an Iranian plot against the president, leveraging Turkey’s proximity to Iran’s border to stage a potential attack.
The White House did not disclose the maneuver at the time, leading to criticism that aides and journalists left aboard the decoy Air Force One were unknowingly placed in harm’s way as a diversion against the Iranian threat.
A reported Iranian assassination threat targeting Air Force One triggered a major security change while President Trump was in Turkey.
According to reports, Israeli intelligence warned the Trump administration of a potential attack involving shoulder-fired missiles.
Security… pic.twitter.com/xAyQWlGQcL
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 12, 2026
“I think actually the plane that I flew on was at greater risk,” Trump told reporters Tuesday.
“I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plane… that they would be more likely to go for.”
Trump added that he was simply following protocols set by his security detail in response to the Iranian menace.
“I just follow what [the Secret Service] would like to do… I guess there was a threat out there. I didn’t really ask too much about it. I get a lot of threats,” he said.
According to The Washington Post, Trump was accompanied in the catering truck by a small circle of aides, including Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, executive assistant Natalie Harp, and Oval Office operations director Walt Nauta.
Photographer @dougmillsnyt, who was on the Air Force One plane that Trump secretly left as he faced a threat from Iran, tells @ErinBurnett it’s “disturbing to think about it now… we were a decoy.” pic.twitter.com/2KDIont77f
— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) August 13, 2026
No Cabinet officials were in the vehicle.
The secrecy surrounding the July 8 departure from Ankara—where host country Turkey borders Iran—has sparked backlash from media commentators and political analysts, particularly given the origin of the intelligence.
MS NOW host Nicolle Wallace sharply criticized the maneuver on Tuesday, describing it as an “extraordinary act of deception” that effectively used White House staff and press corps members as human decoys against an Iranian-backed operation.
The incident has also renewed scrutiny over presidential transport security.
Trump had originally flown to Ankara aboard a newly renovated jet donated by Qatar, but unexpectedly switched to an older Air Force One model for his departure before executing the final secret transfer to the smaller military aircraft—all while Iranian threats remained the central driver of the security calculus.
Muhammad Luqman is Associate Editor at Views News Now. He writes on wide-ranging issues including economy, South Asia, the Middle East, agriculture, economy and innovation. Luqman has worked some of the leading news organizations and won acclaim for his original and research-based works.
