THE threat to Air Force One was seen as so dire that they sneaked US President Donald Trump off the jet in a catering container to keep him safe. But the same dire threat did not stop them from then sending Air Force One into the skies anyway with a plane full of senior officials, government employees, reporters and military personnel serving as decoys, some unwittingly.
If the Iranians were trying to shoot down the presidential plane last month, as United States officials concluded at the time, then the subterfuge in Ankara, Turkey, that protected the president also may have made targets of dozens of others who flew aboard the jet, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and senior aides Stephen Miller and Steven Cheung.
The government has on rare occasions engaged in sleight of hand to safeguard presidents from possible jeopardy, particularly for journeys to hazardous locations, such as when George W. Bush or Barack Obama flew to Iraq during days of war or when Bill Clinton made a brief visit to Pakistan with its history of terrorism.
The Trump team’s ruse in Ankara, however, stands out not only for its misdirection but also for the way it shifted the evident peril to others and was kept secret long after Trump was out of harm’s way.
Human shields?
“They just didn’t seem to give a second thought to anybody but the president and the few people who were with him,” said Joe Lockhart, who served as White House press secretary to Clinton during his 2000 trip to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.
“We went out of our way to make sure the maximum number of people, especially civilians, were protected and not human shields. They didn’t even think about it. And to me, that’s the big difference.”
But other veterans of risky White House trips said there were times that extreme measures were justified to protect the president. Joe Hagin, who as a top adviser to Bush helped organise his war zone trips and later served as Trump’s deputy White House chief of staff in his first term, said he would not second-guess the decision in Ankara.
“I understand there is concern for those flying on what was assumed to be the primary aircraft,” Hagin said, “but when you go to work at the White House or travel with the president, you are accepting a not-insignificant degree of risk. Telling everyone what’s up in an operation like this would have obviously jeopardised the president’s safety.”
When Bush or Obama brought staff members and reporters with them to war zones, Hagin added, those were dangerous moments, too.
“This was no different than the trips to Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “You add up all the risks and figure out the tactics that give you the safest option, regardless of whose toes get stepped on or feelings get hurt.”
The government officials and reporters who travelled with presidents to war zones, of course, knew they were doing so, while those left on Air Force One in Ankara last month were not told of the increased threat.
Journalists traveling in the back of the plane were instructed while still on the ground to keep their window shades closed during the July 8 flight from Ankara to Britain, where Trump landed secretly in another military plane. The president was then sneaked back onto Air Force One so that he could disembark in front of cameras as if he had been onboard all along.
Just like the movies
The secret switch in Ankara, first reported Monday by The Washington Post and confirmed by The New York Times and other news outlets, was so remarkable that it sounded like something out of Hollywood. In fact, it defied even the imagination of Andrew W. Marlowe, who wrote the screenplay for the iconic 1997 thriller Air Force One, featuring Harrison Ford as a president whose plane is hijacked.
Mulling it over, Marlowe said he was sure the Secret Service was doing what was necessary to keep the president safe. But he added that it did not make Trump look all that good.
“Now real life isn’t a movie, but given the circumstances, I’m not sure I could ever script a moment like that for a heroic main character,” Marlowe said.
“If the threat were that great, it’s hard to imagine the audience rooting for any character who would trade his own safety by treating the remaining civilians onboard as potential sacrificial lambs, especially without their informed consent.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about the decision or address whether extra measures were taken to protect the plane from any threat even without Trump onboard.
Trump told reporters that he followed the advice of the Secret Service and rejected the notion that others were put in more danger.
“I think actually the plane that I flew on was at greater risk because that would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for,” he said, an assertion at odds with the point of switching planes in the first place.
The extraordinary deception underscored the sense of danger felt by Trump, who was grazed by a would-be assassin’s bullet while campaigning in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024 and targeted by another armed man at his Florida golf course later that year.
During the Biden administration, officials said that Iranian elements were trying to kill Trump. As recently as last Tuesday, the police were investigating a bomb threat at a McDonald’s in Ohio near the site of a planned visit by Trump later that evening.
Routine covert operation?
The Secret Service and military units charged with the president’s safety typically use decoys to confuse possible attackers, although not involving civilians without their knowledge.
When any president travels in a motorcade, there are usually two identical armoured limousines or sport utility vehicles with identical Washington DC, license plates to make it hard to know which one he is in.
When he flies by Marine One, there are often three or four identical green-and-white helicopters flying together.
“If there’s an attack on the motorcade, the secure package splits off and everyone else is on their own, from some WH staff to some military officials, all reporters and members of Congress,” Ari Fleischer, a White House press secretary for Bush, wrote on social media.
“The safety of potus (president of the United States) always comes first. We don’t complain. That’s the way it is.”
“It’s totally understandable that the White House would want to compartmentalise a security operation like this,” said John F. Kirby, a retired Navy rear admiral who served as a top spokesperson for the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon during the Obama and Biden administrations.
“I don’t fault them for going to lengths to keep the president safe or in withholding specific threat intelligence.”
“But,” he added, “they also have an obligation for the safety and security of those travelling with the president. And when the risk of that travel is knowable – as it certainly was in this case – they have an obligation to at least provide the broad contours of it so that travellers can make informed decisions.”
Hagin disagreed. “My only criticism is that it leaked,” he said.
“It is very, very hard to move the president covertly, and when you burn one of these tactics it’s unlikely you could get away with it again, which just makes it even harder the next time you need to do it.
"This wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last that an operation like this is required, regardless who is president.” — ©2026 The New York Times Company
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
