The Washington Post reported that Trump exited Air Force One via a cargo container transferred by hydraulic lift while the plane sat on the tarmac in Turkey on July 8, boarding a smaller Air Force aircraft as his security team executed a plan to evade a reported Iranian assassination threat. About a dozen traveling journalists in a separate section of Air Force One, with no access to the president, were unaware of the switch and flew out despite the threat, with one anonymous reporter telling the Post that defending the president 'is not my job.'
Pool reports noted an unusual Secret Service order to lower window shades during takeoff, outside a combat zone. Trump's arrival in Turkey aboard the Qatar-gifted jet, which reportedly lacks anti-missile systems, had already drawn scrutiny, prompting reliance on the older Air Force One instead; he later returned to the Qatari plane for the flight home from Britain.
The White House has not directly responded to the reported swap; communications director Steven Cheung repeated only that the administration uses 'every tool at our disposal' against threats to the president. The article notes similar decoy tactics were used for Bill Clinton in 2000 and, in a more secrecy-heavy form, for Joe Biden's 2023 Ukraine visit.
The full dispatch is available from the source below.