Topline
President Donald Trump on Tuesday confirmed reports of him secretly swapping planes while departing from Turkey after a NATO summit last month and said the decision was made by the Secret Service because of a potential threat to his aircraft.
Key Facts
When asked about the swap by reporters after returning from an event in Ohio, Trump said the decision was “only up to the Secret Service,” and he follows what they or the military recommends on such matters.
Trump said they wanted him to switch to a different plane with “equal safety,” so he went ahead and did the swap, signaling that he didn’t have much choice on the matter.
On what may have prompted the swap, Trump said he guessed there was a “threat out there,” but claimed he didn’t ask too much about it as he gets a “lot of threats.”
When asked if he was worried about the threat of a shoulder-launched missile attack, as some reports suggested, Trump said he doesn’t “worry about anything,” and his attitude on such matters is “whatever.”
Trump also downplayed concerns that the people flying on the decoy Air Force One—some White House staffers and the press corps—were unwittingly put at risk.
The president said he thought the plane he flew on, the smaller Air Force Boeing C-32A, “was at greater risk” because that would be the plane the presumed attackers “would be more likely to go for.”
What Do We Know About The Plane Swap?
On Monday night, the Washington Post first reported that the president swapped planes last month while departing from Turkey after a NATO summit. Trump had arrived in Turkey in the new Qatari-gifted jet, which was on its debut international trip as the new Air Force One. Trump and the White House had announced he would depart on board the old Air Force One jet, but after he boarded the plane in public view, he was secretly whisked away to a C-32A—the type of plane primarily used by the vice president and other senior cabinet members—on a catering truck. Earlier reporting about the President’s departure from Turkey had focused on the decision to use the old Air Force One jet instead of the Qatari-gifted plane due to its purported lack of security features. The New York Times reported that some White House staff members and the reporters on board the larger jet were not made aware of the secret swap and believed they were flying with the president on board. After the jets landed in the U.K., Trump was quietly whisked back into the old Air Force One from which he disembarked in view of the reporters. The final leg of the journey from the U.K. airbase to Washington, D.C. was flown on board the new Qatari-gifted plane.