WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Aug. 11 he was acting on the advice of Secret Service when he was covertly carried off Air Force One in a catering container and flown out of Turkey on another military jet.
The ruse was a ploy designed to protect the president amid a possible threat to his safety amid a recent international trip.
"It's up to Secret Service. I just follow what they'd like to do. I go by Secret Service and the military," Trump told reporters at the Joint Base Andrews as he returned from Ohio. "They wanted me to go on a different plane, a different plane, uh, equal safety, but they wanted me to do it, so I do it."
The July 8 incident involved a bait-and-switch by Trump, who announced he was making an unscheduled stop in the
United Kingdom to drop off an old Air Force One on his way back from a NATO summit. He then took a third plane in secret to England. Reporters and some White House staff traveled on the original plane, effectively acting as decoys.
Trump arrived at the Turkish summit in a red, white and blue, Qatar-gifted jet that his administration had outfitted to act as a replacement Air Force One. He was seen boarding the powder-blue plane he said his administration would be retiring from service when he departed.
But after he was on board, The Washington Post and the New York Times reported, he was secretly transferred to another military jet. He then flew on that plane from Turkey to the Royal Air Force Mildenhall U.S. Air Force Base in Suffolk, England.
He is believed to have switched back to Qatari plane, a Boeing 747-B, before flew from England to Joint Base Andrews, near Washington, D.C.
The ruse reportedly left even some White House aides in the dark. Neither the White House nor the Secret Service responded to questions about the plane switch. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who traveled with Trump to NATO, ignored a questions about the incident at an Aug. 11, and the State Department did not respond to request for comment on which plane he took.
USA TODAY previously reported that the known swap between the Qatari jet and the highly-recognizable American jet came was came as a security precaution after Trump terminated a ceasefire with Iran over attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
“I'm number one on the kill list for Iran,” Trump told reporters at the NATO summit, after he publicly announced his plans.
The Secret Service urged the White House to depart Turkey in the old plane, a source familiar with the mattertold USA TODAY at the time, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.
The New York Times reported that U.S. officials were concerned about Iranian proxy forces potentially attacking Trump on his aircraft. The threat was relayed to Trump by Israel, and involved targeting Air Force One with shoulder-fired missiles, according to the Wall Street Journal.
What wasn't known at the time: that Trump was not on either plane.
Trump has flown on both the Qatari-gifted jet and the older blue and white planes since the incident. On Aug. 9 he took short flight from the Morristown airport near his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey to Joint Base Andrews on the smaller of two, powder-blue planes that have traditionally served as Air Force One. Earlier in the weekend, on his way to the golf club, Trump landed at Newark Airport, changing up his regular flight pattern.
He was back on the red, white and blue Qatari-gifted jet on Aug. 11, when he made a trip to Ohio to attend a government-sponsored sporting event.
The president signed a peace deal with Iran in June but it fell apart during the NATO summit, with the president ordering new strikes on Tehran that lasted for nearly two weeks. The war has been in a holding pattern ever since, with Trump announcing, and then calling off, attacks while negotiations to reopen the strait continue.
Contributing: Michael Loria, Joey Garrison
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'I go by Secret Service': Trump explains Air Force One switch
