Consider This from NPR - The elaborate ruse used to conceal Trump's whereabouts

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

The scene of President Trump boarding Air Force One after last month’s NATO summit in Turkey is one that TV cameras and photographers have captured countless times. What happened in the moments after that was far from routine, according to exclusive reporting from the Washington Post.The Post reports that Trump was shuttled in an airport catering truck to a smaller military plane in which he then secretly departed, even as the White House announced he was flying aboard Air Force One.The operation was prompted by an Iranian assassination threat, a U.S. official familiar with the operation told the Post.We should note that NPR has not independently confirmed this reporting.New information about how the White House handled the president’s security is raising questions about safety and transparency.This episode was produced by Elena Burnett and Karen Zamora, with audio engineering by Tiffany Vera Castro and Ted Mebane. Our director is Kai McNamee.Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning who also edited today’s episode along with Janaya Williams.For tickets to a live taping of Sources & Methods, NPR’s national security podcast, visit this link: npr.org/sourcesliveshow.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

It's consider this, where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, an elaborate ruse to conceal President Trump's whereabouts. It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood thriller. Like the 1997 movie Air Force One, starring Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman. Get off my plane. But in this instance, it's not a Hollywood action movie. It's real. And President Trump was the one to get off his own.

plane to counter an assassination attempt from Iran. Trump left the NATO summit in Turkey last month in an older Air Force One plane instead of the Boeing 747 luxury jet donated by Qatar. Here's how the president responded when asked about the switch at the summit. I'd like you to address speculation that you're leaving Ankara not in the new Air Force 1 because of security concerns involving Iran. You've spoken today twice about them possibly assassinating you and possibly being successful. Did that concern have something you're doing? Well, I speak about it a lot because, you know, the life of a president is very dangerous.

Very dangerous. Then he went on to say, No, I'm number one on the kill list for Iran. But it wasn't that simple. The Washington Post uncovered new details about Trump's departure from Ankara. Trump secretly left the replacement Air Force One on a catering cart and flew to the UK on a military jet. Consider this. New information about how the White House handled the president's security is raising questions about safety and transparency. From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. It's Consider This from NPR. The scene of President Trump boarding Air Force One after last month's NATO summit in Turkey is when the TV cameras and photographers have captured countless times. However, what happened in the moments after that was far from routine, according to exclusive reporting from the Washington Post. The Post reports that Trump, Trump was shuttled in an airport catering truck to a smaller military plane in which he then secretly departed, even as the White House announced he was flying aboard Air Force One. The operation was prompted by an Iranian assassination threat, a U.S. official familiar with the operation told the Post.

We should note that NPR has not independently confirmed this reporting. Dan Lamath is one of the Washington Post reporters that broke this story, and he is with us now. Welcome to the program. Thank you. So, Dan, I mean, just walk us through this. Trump appears to get on Air Force One in Turkey, but tell us what actually happens next. Right. So it's kind of a multi-step process here. Trump flew to Turkey on the new Air Force One jet gifted by Qatar last year. Early in the day, he said that that plane was being sent back to Britain so troops there could see it.

That raised a lot of red flags even in the moment that maybe something was off. At the time, everyone was told that Trump would be taking. the old Air Force One, which is that powder blue and white plane that everybody's seen for years to get back home. What actually happened is that the president walked up the external steps to the old Air Force one, waved to the cameras, and then almost immediately, we're told, walked off the plane on the opposite side of the aircraft onto an elevated airport catering truck, which is basically a truck where it almost has like an elevator in the back of it that brings a shipping container

up to the side of the plane. That truck then lowers back to ground level, drives over to a smaller plane, a C-32, and gets back on that other smaller plane. Secretary Pete Hagseth walks up the external stairs to that C-32, making it look like he's the senior official board. And then in sequence, those planes fly to Britain with the larger plane carrying the Air Force One call sign, despite the president not being aboard. And then everybody gets back on the new jet from Qatar in Britain to fly back to the United States. Okay, a lot of questions here. The first one is this. What do we know about the threat from Iran that prompted all of this? Do you have a sense of how immediate or specific it was? We know, and it has been reported by a couple outlets in the last month or so, that there was a

specific threat that triggered a number of concerns. I don't have great fidelity on what would have prompted these sorts of really evasive maneuvers to try and protect the president. I mean, this is a really elaborate sort of operation. I mean, the staff and our fellow reporters who are on board Air Force when were essentially part of the scheme, part of this decoy, did they know that there was a threat? No. You know, our reporting would bear out that at the bare minimum, the vast majority. Can't necessarily speak for all of them, but a majority of the press court did not know. And in fact, continued to report it wrong over the last couple weeks with public understanding not really holding anything until the last day.

Remind us if you can where this fits into the ongoing conversation about security concerns with the new Qatar provided Air Force One. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the questions this whole thing has raised again is that this newer plane was not initially built to be both a VIP jet, but also a military aircraft, something that has countermeasure. something that could perhaps throw flares, something that would be in a way able to protect the president should they face incoming drone fire, missile fire, something like that. They have vaguely alluded to it receiving upgrades, but the specifics of that have been left out of the public square. And there are some legitimate operational concerns there in terms of security that withholding some of those details is not a surprise. I mean, this is a sweeping national security story, but it's also a story about government transparency.

We've heard Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal calling for a congressional briefing on the incident. And I wonder, how unusual is it for the White House to deliberately mislead both the press and the public about where the president is? Certainly, it's rare. The closest thing that came to mind was President Bill Clinton flying into Pakistan on a plane. that flew in after Air Force One in sequence. But in that case, he got off the plane immediately in plain view. It became very apparent within minutes of him landing. And the news coverage and the public understanding at the time really within the day,

within the hour of him landing in Pakistan, the leads of those stories all suggested, you know, a decoy was involved in getting him there. And how has the White House responded to your reporting? It's been muted so far. You know, they released the statement to the public. host initially and then other outlets that have confirmed, basically defending the new aircraft, suggesting the new aircraft is capable and, you know, has what it needs. They alluded to there being

a variety of ways that they need to protect the president. They did not get into specifics, and they also denied nothing. I know that you and your colleagues obviously can't reveal your sources, but this is such a remarkable scoop. What can you tell us about how the story came together and the tip that sparked you and your colleagues to look into this? Yeah, I mean, this started with a discussion in which someone raised to me a concern that the public understanding of this whole series of events was wrong, had been wrong for days. No one was cleaning it up. There was some frustration there and kind of walked me through it. And then from there, hard story to confirm.

So we're looking for additional individuals who can help. We got our visual forensic team involved. We've got some investigation teammates involved. Looking at aircraft tracker data, looking at all of the available video, audio, photographs. In particular, there was a pretty remarkable video, perhaps about 30 minutes long, that kind of captured the movements around these aircraft when they were still in Turkey. And when you looked at the catering truck through that entirely different lens, It was, I mean, my jaw kind of dropped when I looked at that video for the first time,

and it was like everything we are being told here matches up with this separately obtained video. You know, and from there it was, you know, some harder conversations. That was Dan Lamoth. He's a national security reporter at The Washington Post. Thank you and your colleagues so much for your reporting. Thank you. This episode was produced by Elena Burnett and Karen Zamora with audio engineering by Tiffany Veracastro and Ted Mebain. Our director is Kai McNamee.

Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorney, who edited this episode along with Janaya Williams. Before we go, a plug for our friends at Sources and Methods, NPR's National Security Podcast. They're hosting a live show at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C. On Wednesday, September 9th, host Mary Louise Kelly, and former top intelligence officials will discuss the 25th anniversary of 9-11 and why that day is still shaping global events. Tickets are on sale now at NPR. All one word.org forward slash sources live show, all one word. That's npr.org slash sources live show. That link is also in our episode notes. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers.