A Trump plane swap in Turkey kept two cabinet secretaries aboard a decoy aircraft last month while President Donald Trump slipped onto a different flight for security reasons tied to Iran. The unusual move came during the NATO summit trip and involved a secret transfer that left some of his top aides, staff and reporters on what was still treated as Air Force One.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stayed on the first plane after Trump boarded it with members of the press on 8 July. Trump later moved out of sight on a catering truck and was taken to a military aircraft instead. Because the president had been on the original plane, it kept the Air Force One call sign and served as a decoy while Trump flew out of Ankara on the second aircraft.
According to CBS News, the arrangement was designed to preserve the constitutional line of succession if something happened to Trump. Under that line, Vice-President JD Vance would assume power first, followed by the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate. The secretary of state comes next, with the treasury secretary after that, which is why Rubio and Bessent remained where they were. Others on the original aircraft included White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and White House communications director Steven Cheung. US media reports said Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth was on the second aircraft that carried Trump out of Ankara.
Trump told reporters on Monday night that the decision to use the deception came from the US military and the Secret Service, which he said wanted him on a different flight. He did not spell out the threat, saying only that he faces many threats and that “any consequential president has a lot of threats.” The exact nature of the security concern remains unclear, and it is also not clear what the other passengers on the first plane knew about the operation.
