Trump Reportedly Left NATO Summit in Turkey on Decoy Plane in Apparent Fake Out Amid Iranian Threats

A newly revealed security operation involving three airplanes, a decoy flight, and one very unusual ride across a Turkish airport reportedly shows just how far President Trump’s team went to keep him safe from a possible Iranian assassination attempt last month.

‘Reach 18’

The Washington Post exclusively reported the elaborate decoy operation took place as the president left a NATO summit in Ankara on July 8. A credible threat involving Iran is believed to have prompted security officials to conceal which plane was actually carrying the president.

Trump arrived in Turkey for the summit aboard the new Air Force One gifted by Qatar. Then, as he prepared to leave, the president announced he would instead fly out aboard the familiar blue-and-white legacy Air Force One instead. He publicly boarded that aircraft, climbing the stairs and waving goodbye in full view of television cameras.

At least, that is what everyone watching was led to believe.

The Post reported that, within minutes of boarding, the president and several aides slipped out through a door on the opposite side of the plane via an airport catering truck that had been raised hydraulically to meet them.

The truck then lowered back to the tarmac and drove away reportedly carrying President Trump across the airport to a third aircraft: A smaller Air Force military jet. That plane resembled a smaller version of Air Force One, but it reportedly flew Trump to Britain under the far less conspicuous call sign “Reach 18.”

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth reportedly boarded the smaller jet separately using ordinary exterior stairs as part of the effort to make its departure appear routine.

The Legacy Jet

Meanwhile, the legacy Air Force One took off with reporters and some White House staff still on board as an apparent decoy. According to The Post, journalists aboard were instructed to close their window shades as they prepared to depart, which prevented them from seeing activity outside.

The plane carrying the press and staffers reportedly continued using the Air Force One call sign even though the president was not on board.

Exactly how President Trump was then transferred back onto the legacy Air Force One upon arriving in the U.K. remains unclear. By the time cameras were waiting at Royal Air Force Mildenhall, a U.S.-used military air base in England, Trump once again appeared exactly where everyone expected him to be walking down the stairs of the presidential jet shortly before 11pm.

At that point, Trump transferred to the newer Qatari-gifted plane for the remaining flight back to Washington, D.C.

Historic Precedent

After Trump was back on the new presidential jet, journalists pressed him about the unusual order they had received to close their window shades on the previous flight:

REPORTER 1: You’re saying there wasn’t a security concern?

TRUMP: No, no. Why would there be?

REPORTER 2: …Do you know why they had us close our window blinds? That was not usual…

TRUMP: Well, yeah, because you’re probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleeve bags that we have to deal with.

REPORTER 2: They think that Iran was possibly thinking of…

TRUMP: I mean, if they asked you to close your windows, probably they’d feel the way. They didn’t ask me to close mine. But if they did, I would have done it…

REPORTER 3: Were you aware of any credible threat by Iran against Air Force One?

TRUMP: Well, I have a threat all the time. I’m number one on their list, before you. But if I go, you go, right? So perhaps, someday you wanna change professions.

The Post reported the threat was considered credible enough to trigger what one U.S. official described as a “deception operation.”

Similar presidential decoy operations have reportedly been used before when facing serious threats and the highly recognizable Air Force One becomes a liability precisely because everyone knows what it looks like.

The White House did not dispute The Post’s reporting when presented with its findings, instead telling the paper that officials use every tool available to protect the president from threats.

Media Matters

While the operation apparently accomplished its most important objective – getting the president safely out of Turkey without revealing his location – the revelation that reporters themselves were kept out of the loop has ruffling more than a few feathers in the media.

“It was kind of stunning to think that all those on the plane were sort of a decoy there and were not told that the president wasn’t on board and that the deception was continued, even after he safely returned to Washington and that’s hard for me to understand,” David Axelrod said on CNN.

“The Secret Service in the past has used decoy armored cars… but the decoy is manned by Secret Service agents. They don’t put individuals, journalists, and White House staff sort of at risk, so this is just unprecedented certainly in my experience,” former CIA director John Brennan claimed on MSNOW.

But not everyone is up in arms. Retired Secret Service agent Robert McDonald offered a much more favorable assessment on CNN, calling the operation “creative” in the wake of the number of known assassination attempts Trump has faced.

“We’ve had a lot of attempts. Secret service is doing a good job every day, but they’ve had some issues that they’ve had to deal with. The optics of some of the things that they’ve been doing, the complacency that they’ve been accused of, so, look, this, quite frankly, was very creative,” he said.

More importantly, it was effective. “It worked,” McDonald added. “The main thing here is that the president got home safe. It may not have looked pretty. It may have been a little bit ugly and a little bit non transparent, but the president got home safe, especially in this very high threat environment we’re seeing right now.”

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