Before a flight home from Turkey last month, President Trump and a few aides were snuck off of an airplane, shuffled into a catering truck, and moved onto another aircraft. The reason involved some sort of possible threat from Iran. The traveling press and some White House staff remained on the main flight, with no inkling that the president wasn’t with them.
This much we know for sure. But anyone looking to understand what happened will find a jumble of conflicting claims and speculation in the media. For the upcoming episode of They Stand Corrected, my podcast and newsletter fact-checking the news, I’m piecing through what we know for certain.
The background, of course, is that Trump has long attacked the media as “the enemy of the people.” Now, some news agencies are questioning whether his disdain runs so deep that he would use reporters as decoys in a potential attack. But the Secret Service is nonpartisan. And there is a long history of presidents stealthily flying separately.
This trip was already in the news for another reason. The entourage was originally going to fly home in the new Air Force One plane, a gift from Qatar, but ended up boarding the previous Air Force One. The New York Times, citing anonymous sources, reported that it was a security decision linked to Iran. That sparked concerns over the new jet’s safety. The Department of Justice subpoenaed Times reporters to try to discover the sources’ identities but was rebuked by a judge and pulled the subpoenas.
Then, the Washington Post broke the story that Trump wasn’t on the old plane. He was spirited away to a nearby military plane. Some people defending the decision point to a case in 2000, when President Bill Clinton switched planes for a trip from India to Pakistan. Joe Lockhart, then Clinton’s press secretary, says the Secret Service wanted to keep the move a secret, but that he spoke up. “I made the point clearly and strongly that we could not use the media and other civilians as decoys to protect the President,” and the service acquiesced, he wrote on Facebook. Lockhart added that Clinton would have agreed with him.
He also wrote that the Secret Service “didn’t believe that civilians should act as human shields for the President.” But in a phone conversation, he told me he no longer wants to try to characterize the service’s thinking.
So what was done differently? According to Lockhart, Clinton did not board the same plane as the journalists and staffers; instead, he walked around it, in view of onlookers. The secret was which other plane Clinton would board.
Lockhart said the president of the White House Correspondents Association at the time, Susan Page, was informed that this was happening. Page, now bureau chief for USA Today, confirms that. However, she says it remained a secret during the flights. “As far as I know, I was the only journalist who was aware of the president’s plane switch,” she wrote. “When he landed, the world realized he had switched to the unmarked plane.”
That brings us to a clear difference. Back then, people learned upon landing; this time, it remained secret. But that doesn’t make this situation unprecedented. It’s possible other presidents have done what Trump did, but no anonymous sources leaked it. Lockhart told me he thinks that’s probable.
Trump says he simply did what the Secret Service asked. “They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane, equal safety,” he said. In typical Trump style, he then contradicted himself, saying he believes “the plane that I flew on was at greater risk,” since he was Iran’s target. But because the move was secret, there’s no reason to think he was actually at greater risk.
And it’s unclear how big the risk was. CNN, my old stomping grounds, claimed there was an “imminent threat” to the aircraft. But it gave no source for that claim. (At one point on air, CNN seemed to attribute the term to the New York Times, but there’s no sign the Times ever said that.)
Reuters later cited two anonymous sources: one saying the Secret Service believed there was an imminent threat, the other saying there was no clear plan “for executing the threat, but only an intent, which is why the planes were allowed to fly.” Meanwhile, the Post said the CIA had “low confidence” in any threat.
It’s possible that in this era of instant communication, the Secret Service insists on a tighter lid for security measures. Perhaps it’s afraid someone might leak the information, endangering lives of the president and the other small group of protectees. (I’ve contacted the Secret Service for comment but have not heard back.)
This much is clear: The Trump administration has antagonized the press to a level I’ve never seen. “In 2000, there was a high level of trust between my office and the media,” Lockhart says. “That doesn’t exist anymore.”
Josh Levs is host of They Stand Corrected, the podcast and newsletter fact-checking the media. Find him at joshlevs.com.
