WSJ What’s News - A Secret Military Jet and a Catering Truck: How Trump Evaded an Iranian Threat

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

P.M. Edition for Aug. 11. President Trump didn’t fly out of Turkey in his new Air Force One last month, instead using an elaborate decoy operation. WSJ chief political correspondent Josh Dawsey runs through the new details about how and why that happened. Plus, the University of Michigan says it will drop first-semester grades for freshmen next school year. Doug Belkin, who covers higher education for the Journal, discusses how it will work and why the university made this decision. And some of the top officials in global soccer are calling for FIFA president Gianni Infantino to resign. We hear from WSJ sports editor Joshua Robinson about what the drama could mean for future competitions. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A threat from Iran against President Trump last month led to him being secretly flown out of Turkey. We've got the details on the elaborate decoy operation. Plus, the University of Michigan is dropping grades for freshmen. What does that say about the value of a diploma? The sense that there's less rigor and fewer standards attached to the credentials that these universities are issuing is a real significant vulnerability for universities. and why some of the most powerful names in global soccer are pushing for FIFA's president to resign. It's Tuesday, August 11th. I'm Alex O'Sullough for the Wall Street Journal.

This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. We begin with a journal exclusive from the Middle East. Early this morning, U.S. forces fired on a Panama flagship that tried to break the American blockade of Iran's ports. That's according to a U.S. official. There were no immediate reports of, any casualties from the incident. The attack comes during a relatively quiet moment in the war, and it's part of the American effort to starve Iran of oil revenue and force it to make a deal to end the hostilities. Related to Iran, more details are emerging about what prompted President

Trump not to take his new Air Force One back from a diplomatic visit to Turkey last month. WSJ reported at the time that Trump returned to the U.S. in an older Air Force One plane, but that wasn't what happened. WSJ chief political correspondent Josh Dawsey explains. What really happened is that once the president got on the old Air Force One, she was secretly taken off the plane in a truck that usually is used to bring food onto planes and was taken to another military jet and he flew from there to London. They believed there was intelligence that someone would want to shoot a missile at the plane. And that if the Iranian proxies or anybody else who wanted to kill the president or shoot the plane,

we knew the airport. And they had shoulder to air missiles. They could fire them at plane. Now, whether that intelligence was incredibly serious or not, we haven't seen it ourselves, so we don't know. But what we've been told is that is what merited this extraordinary maneuver. The effort to secretly move Trump to another plane was first reported by the Washington Post. The new Air Force One is getting an upgrade this fall, which Josh says should

make it more usable and secure. To be clear here, they didn't even think the old Air Force one was safe enough for him to take off. And that plane that contained senior White House staff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the traveling press corps and others still took off, right? And all of those folks were unwitting, did not know what was going on. U.S. home sales fell more than expected last month. The National Association of Realtors said today that sales of existing homes declined 1.7% in July from the previous month, but were up 0.7% from a year ago. Heightened tensions in the Middle East have led to higher borrowing rates. Plus, home prices have continued to rise. NAR said the median existing home price rose 2% from

last July to the second highest price on record after June. There's a shift going on at one of the country's largest and best-known public universities. The University of Michigan said today, it'll drop first semester grades for new freshmen next school year. On their transcripts, the students will get a grade of pass or no credit, but they'll still know their actual grade, which will be stored internally to make sure they're eligible for scholarships. The school says it's an effort to, quote, curb the mental health crisis going on among college students. Doug Belkin covers higher education for the journal. Doug, why did the university reach this decision and how is it supposed to help students? The university said they did this because there's so much sort of ambient mental health

issues among kids entering college right now that giving them a kind of a pass on a grade, first year will give them time to acclimate. Hopefully they say they'll be able to take more risks. And then when they get their footing, they'll be held accountable on their transcripts again. How is this change going over? I spoke to the student body president who said he'd spoken to about 50 kids who were either jealous that they are not going to be freshmen. You know, next year when this happened or generally happy for the kids. If there's any indication from the notes I'm getting in my email box from readers of the journal,

they think that kids are being coddled, you have to accept the responsibilities of adulthood, and that starts when you go off to college. Yeah, I could imagine there's some resentment. Like, I did it, so why is it so hard for other people to do it too? There's a significant disconnect between the generations. A lot of the emails I'm getting from folks who graduated in the 70s and even the 60s, and they just feel like this is sort of a bridge too far. They have a sense that kids don't have to work as hard.

The faculty who are working with the kids at Michigan are more empathetic. They talk about, you know, it's just harder to be a college student today between issues of social media, the cost of college, AI infringing on jobs, and this is a needed break. Michigan's move comes amid this ongoing debate about great inflation, higher education, but also more broadly about the value of college. Could this move the needle in any of those conversations? The sense that there's less rigor and fewer standards attached to the credentials that these universities are issuing is a real significant vulnerability for universities. That's twinned with the notion that academic integrity has really kind of gone out the window with AI. And so all these things are sort of playing into the notion that the college degree isn't what it used to be. That was WSJ reporter, Doug Belkin. Thank you, Doug.

Thank you very much. Coming up, what the drama at the highest level of. of global soccer could mean for future competitions. That and more after the break. U.S. stocks closed lower for a second straight session today. The NASDAQ fell 0.6%, and the S&P and the Dow both dropped 0.3%. In corporate news, a longtime OpenAI executive, former operating chief Brad Lightcap, is stepping down. It's the latest in a series of high-profile departures from the company.

Oil refiner Philip 66 says it'll build a 900-mile pipeline to move oil from the Texas panhandle to Arizona and California. The $5 billion project called the Western Gateway Pipeline System should start moving fuel in 2009. Flight tracking platform Flight Aware is suing CalShe. Flight Aware alleges that the prediction market company is using its data without permission to let users bet on flight cancellations and even influence air traffic for profit. Calci didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. And we're exclusively reporting that Domino's is planning to introduce a personal-sized rectangular pizza pie. The company's incoming CEO Joe Jordan says the new offering, called The Domino,

came out of thousands of interviews, showing that some customers don't want to share their food, even when they're eating with others. And finally, soccer fans love some good-spirited competition. That's what makes for a good match. But for the organizations that run global soccer, there's an all-out war going on. Last month, FIFA unveiled a controversial plan to sell off parts of the commercial rights to the World Cup. Then last week, FIFA took it off the table, and its president Gianni Infantino even apologized for proposing it in the first place. But some soccer officials are still calling for him to be removed from office.

WSJ Sports editor Joshua Robinson is here to discuss. Joshua briefly, what is this plan and who was opposed to it? So the plan was to take FIFA's commercial rights and then spin off into a private company that they could then sell a section of. But Johnny Infantino tried to push this plan through very quickly with minimal oversight. And what happened was most of the soccer world thought, hey, he's bringing in outside people and selling off our most prized competition. And so there was an immediate and very strong reaction to all of this. So in response, FIFA withdrew the proposal. Gianni Infantino apologized. But global soccer leaders are still calling for his ouster.

Yesterday, three of the six Global Soccer Confederation signed an open letter that called for a change at the top of FIFA. What is their argument? Their argument is that this didn't happen in a vacuum. It goes back to things like awarding President Trump the FIFA Peace Prize, an award he made up, things like trying to ram through a proposal for a 64-Team World Cup, expanding it from 48. There have been examples over and over again of Infantino coming up with an ice. idea and trying to get it through without consulting the members of FIFA or the FIFA Council and half the world has had just about enough.

How big a threat is this to Infantino's leadership? These three confedrations and the most powerful of them is UEFA, which oversees the game in Europe. They've been at loggerheads with Infantino for years. They see this as their opportunity to get them out once and for all. What they're trying to provoke is maybe a vote of no confidence, which is unprecedented in FIFA history. Ultimately, though, it seems likely that if he doesn't resign now, they still don't have a candidate, but they'll have to wait to mount a real challenge at the FIFA presidential

election next March. Okay, this is messy. It could not be more messy, but welcome to international soccer. There are a few global soccer events coming up in the next few months, including the under 20 women's World Cup. What are you going to be looking out for to see how this all plays out? I'll be honest, that's not an event that would normally cross my radar. But the difference this time is that UEFA's first mode of protest was to say, we're going to boycott every FIFA event as long as this plan is on the table. And now UEFA is saying, unless there's a leadership change, we're going to continue boycotting. Six of the 24 teams due to play at this tournament are European. Are they going to pull out?

The tournament's supposed to be in Poland. Is Poland going to pull out from hosting it? That tournament starts the first week of September, and the clock is ticking. That was WSJ Sports Editor Joshua Robinson. Thanks, Joshua. Thank you. And that's what's news for this Tuesday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Anthony Bansy and Danny Lewis with Deputy Editor Chris Sinsley.

I'm Alex O'SAlev for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.