Democrats seek briefing on Trump Air Force One switch

Democrats are demanding answers after reports that President Donald Trump was secretly moved off Air Force One in Turkey and flown to Britain on a different military aircraft while aides, officials and journalists remained aboard the presidential plane unaware he had left.

The episode, first reported by The Washington Post and The New York Times and later detailed by the BBC and The Guardian, unfolded after a NATO summit in Ankara. Trump was seen boarding Air Force One in view of television cameras, but was reportedly taken off the aircraft through a side door and moved in a catering truck to a C-32A, a military version of a Boeing 757. That aircraft flew him to RAF Mildenhall in the United Kingdom.

Those left on Air Force One, including more than 100 aides, officials and reporters, believed the president was still aboard. Reporters were instructed to keep their window shades closed during the flight. The C-32A carrying Trump arrived at RAF Mildenhall at about 10:20 p.m., according to The Guardian, with the older Air Force One and the travelling press pool arriving minutes later. Photographers later captured Trump descending from the presidential aircraft after he had apparently been reunited with it.

The White House has not directly confirmed the details. Communications director Steven Cheung told The Washington Post that the president faces numerous threats and that officials used “every tool at our disposal” to protect him. The BBC reported that the White House has neither confirmed nor denied the account, saying only that it uses every tool available to protect the president. The Secret Service has not commented.

The reported switch followed intelligence concerns about a possible Iranian threat against Trump or his aircraft, according to The New York Times and CBS News as cited by The Guardian. During the summit, the U.S. military was conducting major strikes against Iran, heightening fears of retaliation.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, called the operation “unprecedented and surreal” and “downright scary” on CNN. “There has to be a congressional briefing because it involves not just the safety of the president,” he said. “I want to know what precautions were taken to make sure that all of the passengers on that Air Force One, which was judged too dangerous for the president to fly on, what precautions were taken to keep the staff and reporters on that plane safe?”

Former officials and security experts said deception is a regular part of presidential protection, though the scale of this reported operation has drawn scrutiny. Ronald Kessler, an author who has written extensively about the Secret Service, told the BBC such deception is “very common” and said there is “a long history of strategies to mislead anybody who might be trying to harm the president.”

Robert McDonald, a former high-ranking Secret Service agent, described routine motorcade tactics as a “shell game,” with two presidential limousines known as “the Beasts” changing positions while en route. “Different things are used to mix up the bad guy,” he told the BBC. Marine One also routinely flies in groups of three, changing positions so potential threats do not know which helicopter carries the president.

More elaborate measures have been used on high-risk foreign trips. Bill Clinton flew to Pakistan in 2000 on an unmarked executive jet after a decoy aircraft with Air Force One markings landed. George W. Bush secretly flew to Baghdad in 2003 after the White House said he would spend Thanksgiving in Texas. Joe Biden was secretly taken to Ukraine in 2023 with a slimmed-down press pool. In those cases, the BBC reported, journalists aboard knew of the deception but agreed not to report it in real time.

Paul Eckloff, a former Secret Service agent, told the BBC that an aircraft switch “does not happen often” but remains an option for executive protection. McDonald said the reported decision to move Trump suggested the threat level in Turkey was “relatively substantial and quite high.”

Others questioned whether keeping passengers uninformed made them decoys. Steven Cash, executive director of the Steady State and a former CIA officer, said, “It appears that the idea was we can reduce the danger to President Trump by offering up 100 or so people to be killed by the Iranians in his place.” CNN anchor Jake Tapper wrote that while previous White Houses have used deception to protect presidents, officials he spoke with had not heard of “using an AF1 full of WH staff and journalists as a decoy during an imminent threat.”

Experts cited by The Guardian differed on the nature of the possible danger. Ankit Panda of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said an Iranian attempt to target a presidential aircraft from that distance would be “extremely implausible.” Jeffrey Lewis of the Foreign Policy Research Institute said Iran could theoretically strike a plane on a runway with a ballistic missile, but “that seems very unlikely,” and suggested officials may have feared a portable anti-aircraft weapon. James Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, said the secrecy pointed to serious intelligence behind the threat.

Trump appeared to allude to risk when asked why reporters had been told to keep their shades down. “You’re probably on a dangerous flight,” he said. “But if I go, you go. Right?” Asked later whether there had been a credible Iranian threat against Air Force One, he said: “Well, I have a threat all the time. I’m number one on their list before you.”