Reports reveal President Trump secretly swapped planes after last month's NATO summit in Turkey, transferring via catering truck to a decoy aircraft amid what officials describe as a credible Iranian missile threat to Air Force One. Trump previously told ABC's Jonathan Karl he believed he'd beaten Iran to the punch on assassination attempts, tying it to the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei in a U.S.-backed Israeli strike.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has echoed the personal framing of the conflict, saying an alleged Iranian assassination unit leader was killed in U.S. strikes. Past assassination plots against Trump, including a 2024 arrest of a man with alleged IRGC ties, are cited as part of a broader pattern of threats stretching back to the 2020 killing of Qasem Soleimani.
The White House has offered little detail on the specific threat that triggered the elaborate switch, though security experts note such precautions aren't unusual for presidential travel near conflict zones. The episode surfaced only after more than a month, raising questions about why it stayed secret so long from a president who otherwise talks openly about being a target.
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