Two members of US President Donald Trump’s cabinet were on a decoy plane that Trump secretly exited before boarding a different flight in Turkey last month, CBS News reports. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent remained aboard what was believed to be Air Force One and didn’t join a flight that was provided to Trump over security concerns involving Iran.
After Trump entered Air Force One on 8 July with both officials and members of the press, he hid on a catering truck to be clandestinely transported to a military plane.
The label “Air Force One” applies to any plane the president is on, but in this case the original craft kept the call signal, becoming a decoy.
According to CBS – the BBC’s US partner – Rubio and Bessent remained on board the first aircraft to maintain the line of succession in case something happened to Trump.
In the event that the president dies or is incapacitated, Vice-President JD Vance would take power, followed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate.
The Secretary of State comes next in line, followed by the treasury secretary.
Others who stayed on the initial aircraft designated as Air Force One included White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Steven Cheung, the White House’s communications director.
The second aircraft that flew President Trump out of Ankara also included Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, according to US media reports. Trump was also accompanied by his executive assistant Natalie Harp, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, and Walt Nauta, director of Oval Office operations.
Speaking to reporters on Monday night, Trump said the decision to undertake the deception was made by the US military and the Secret Service, who “wanted me to go in a different flight”.
The nature of the security threat remains unclear, with Trump providing no specifics, saying only that he gets “a lot of threats”.
“Any consequential president has a lot of threats,” he added.
The threat was related to a shoulder-mounted missile launcher, multiple US outlets reported, as well as concerns that the Iranians had knowledge of Trump’s whereabouts, including what hotel floor he was staying on.
According to the New York Times, citing unnamed officials, someone had been spotted carrying a portable surface-to-air missile in the vicinity of the Nato conference in the Turkish capital.
It is unclear what the cabinet secretaries and other officials, along with the Air Force members working on the plane, knew of the operation. Members of the press have said they were not aware that they were on a decoy flight.
Various ruses, often referred to as “shell games” by Secret Service personnel, are common.
Identical versions of the president’s heavily armoured limousine, for example, often switch positions in motorcades, as do helicopters transporting the president in the air.
More elaborate operations often take place during high-risk trips abroad, and in those cases reporters on Air Force One are typically briefed and asked not to report the movements in real-time.
In March 2000, for example, then-President Bill Clinton flew to the Pakistani capital of Islamabad on an unmarked executive jet that landed after a decoy jet with the livery of Air Force One.
Ahead of the trip, the White House informed USA Today reporter Susan Page – then the head of the White House Correspondent’s Association – of the security arrangements.
“They told me about the extraordinary security procedures being taken because of the dangers flying there, including the use of the decoy plane,” Page revealed for the first time this week.
“Of course, the dangers threatened the journalists covering the trip as well as President Clinton,” she said in an interview with the Washington Post.
It is also not currently clear what, if any, danger the occupants of the plane carrying Rubio, Bessent, other staff and the White House press pool were in during the Ankara trip.
The White House Correspondent’s Association has not publicly commented on the incident. But association president Jacqui Heinrich said in an internal memo to the press corps that she met with Trump administration officials on the matter.
She said she “advocated strongly for the importance of maintaining independent press coverage of the president and an accurate historical record of his movements”.
Heinrich asked the White House to work with the association on a protocol for handling extraordinary security circumstances in future.
By BBC News
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