Full story
Decoy plane in Turkey
Israel told the United States about an Iranian assassination threat that caused the US Secret Service to take President Donald Trump off Air Force One and transfer him in a catering truck to a military plane as he prepared to fly out of Turkey last month, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday citing an unnamed US official.
“Israel told the United States about the Iranian assassination threat”
The report said Israeli intelligence indicated Iran was plotting to use shoulder-to-air missiles to take down Trump’s plane, and senior Trump aides including Secretary of State Marco Rubio remained on the plane despite the threat.
Trump later confirmed the events, telling reporters that he slipped away from Air Force One after the summit in Turkey because the Secret Service and military wanted him on a "different plane."
The Times of Israel also reported that Trump denied the July 9 Wall Street Journal report, telling the New York Post: “No, no. Israel came up with nothing. No, no,” while adding that he would “completely decimate and destroy” Iran if it attempts to assassinate the president.
Security concerns and reactions
The Hill said the Secret Service ruse to fly Trump out of the NATO summit last month in Turkey amid an assassination threat from Iran is raising questions about the president’s security while traveling abroad, after Trump was secretly moved in a catering truck to board a smaller Air Force C-32A.
Retired Secret Service agent Timothy Reboulet told The Hill that “These state-sponsored threats are a whole other level,” describing the threat from Tehran as “deadly serious.”
The Washington Post first reported Monday that Trump left Ankara on an alternate aircraft because of the threat, and The Hill said the press pool traveling with the president was not aware of the president’s movements and believed him to be on the same plane they were on.
In a separate account, CBC reported Trump confirmed the events on Tuesday, saying the Secret Service and military wanted him on a "different plane" due to a threat that he insisted didn’t scare him, and he downplayed the risk to people left on the plane by saying, “They wanted me to go on a different flight, different plane,”.
What the threat changed
The Times of Israel said the operation added a fresh layer to how seriously concerned US security officials were about the threat against the president during the ongoing war with Iran, which has been publicly pledging to assassinate him since the US killed Iranian IRGC Quds Force Gen. Qassem Soleimani during Trump’s first term in 2020.
“The Iranian threat that prompted President Trump’s secret Air Force One swap last month emerged”
The New York Times reported that the Iranian threat emerged as Trump was heading into his last day at the NATO summit in Turkey on July 8, and said U.S. intelligence picked up a specific threat of a surface-to-air missile against Air Force One and that someone in the vicinity of the NATO summit had been spotted with a shoulder-fired missile.
The New York Times also said the information was deemed sufficiently credible to lead Trump and senior members of his administration to engage in an extraordinary decoy effort, with Trump boarding the older Air Force One in front of the cameras before sneaking off in an airport catering container and taking a military jet out of the country.
In the same reporting stream, The Times of Israel said Trump asserted the plan he secretly flew on was “at greater risk,” adding: “I think actually the plane that I flew on was at greater risk,” while also insisting, “I don’t trust Iran.”