Donald Trump has spoken out after it was revealed he was smuggled off of Air Force One in a catering truck before leaving Turkey last month. Outside of Joint Base Andrews, he told reporters: ‘It’s up to the Secret Service. I just follow what they’d like to do.
‘They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane. Equal safety. But they wanted me to do it, so I do it. I do what they say.’
Alleged assassination plot
Reports of a potential assassination plot from Iran prompted the last-minute switch. The US president was bundled into an alternative military plane and flown out following the Nato summit in Ankara.
The White House press corps and even some senior aides on board Air Force One fell for the ruse, thinking Trump was on board with them for the journey back to Washington.
Strikes in Iran
Several reports last month claimed intelligence sources had flagged concerns about a potential attack on the president or his plane. While Trump was in Turkey, the US carried out a series of large strikes in Iran in retaliation for its attacks on merchant shipping in the region.
He had flown to the summit in a new Qatari-gifted and retrofitted red, white and navy-blue jet. But ahead of departing Turkey, he said he would fly partway home on an older-model baby blue Air Force One plane instead.
Trump’s warning
In early July, Trump warned he may be assassinated by Iran as he is the regime’s ‘number one target’. Speaking at a news conference at the end of the Nato summit in Turkey – shortly before being moved to a different plane – Trump said: ‘Iran had leaders, they’re gone. And they had another set of leaders; they’re gone.
‘Now they have another set of leaders. They may be gone. Who knows? And you know what? I may be gone too, because I’m their number one target.
‘It’s out all over the place. I’m their number one because they’re scum. That’s the way they act, and that’s the way they’ve done it for 47 years.’
