Trump Confirms He Left Turkey on a Different Aircraft After an Alleged Iranian Threat

President Donald Trump confirmed that the Secret Service and the military moved him off Air Force One and onto a smaller aircraft as he left Turkey last month, after the two agencies told him of a security threat, the South China Morning Post reported. "They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane," he told reporters, adding that he did not ask for details and that he receives many threats.

Fuller accounts published since then describe a more elaborate operation than first known. Trump was moved off Air Force One and into the alternate aircraft while hidden inside a catering truck, and journalists and aides remained aboard Air Force One, apparently exposed to the same threat and without being told the president had already left, NBC News reported, citing the Washington Post's original account of an assassination threat attributed to Iran. The administration has not disclosed publicly that the press pool travelled on what effectively became a decoy plane, the Washington Post reported. Trump told CBS News that the aircraft he ultimately boarded was, in his words, at "greater risk" than Air Force One, Al Jazeera reported. BBC Hindi reported that the switch followed a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) meeting in Turkey.

The domestic fight is about disclosure rather than the flight itself. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has demanded a full account of the operation, the Financial Times reported, and said the Gang of Eight, the congressional leaders who oversee intelligence matters, had not been briefed on the episode before it became public. The White House allowed the public record to show the president aboard an aircraft he was not on, and the newer reporting indicates that record extended to the press corps covering him. Iran has not commented on the alleged threat, and no evidence has been published linking it to a specific Iranian directive.