Sources leaked Donald Trump’s secret Air Force One escape because they thought the public has a right to know the scale of threats he faces, according to the reporter who broke the story.
The White House said that Trump, 80, flew out of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on July 8 on one of his two presidential jets. He boarded it as television crews filmed—only to be snuck out minutes later through a door on the far side and into a catering container. That truck then took him across the tarmac to a different aircraft altogether. The original plane went on to the U.K. without him, carrying the press pool and White House staff who believed he was up front.
The Washington Post broke the astonishing true story of that flight on Monday, revealing that the last-minute change was made because credible intelligence suggested a possible Iranian assassination attempt on Trump after renewed U.S. military strikes the previous day.
On Monday night, one of the Post’s reporters, Dan Lamothe, went on CNN to discuss the scoop with Kaitlan Collins. He told her that his sources had revealed Trump’s clandestine catering truck escape because “there was a hole in public understanding here that needed to be clarified.”
He noted that while Trump’s security detail had shown “creativity and ingenuity,” the entire episode provides a staggering insight into the dangers now facing even the most powerful of all American officials.
“I don’t think there’s any dispute here—Iran is a serious threat to the United States. Iran is a threat to senior U.S. officials,” Lamothe told Collins. “That pre-dates this administration. There is cause for concern. It’s unclear at the moment what exactly triggered them to take these extreme measures—but either way, we’ve gone about a month now since it occurred, and until today, there was no public understanding of it.”
News of the incident has sparked immediate backlash, given Trump appears to have been the only person who was quietly moved off of Air Force One. “It was kind of stunning to think that all those on the plane were essentially a decoy,” Democratic strategist David Axelrod, who flew on the aircraft under the Obama administration, told Collins. “They were not told that the president was not on board, and the deception continued even after he had safely returned to Washington. That’s hard for me to understand.”
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal has now demanded that Congress investigate the incident. “It is unprecedented and it is surreal,” he told CNN on Monday night, calling the episode “downright scary.” He added that a briefing was needed because more than the president’s safety was at stake.
It is not, however, the first time Trump’s staff have been left on a plane he had snuck off. During his 2024 campaign, further threats of assassination from Iran prompted his security detail to move him onto a jet belonging to Steve Witkoff, now his special envoy, while aides flew on Trump’s own plane, as Axios reported in February. Some onboard feared becoming “collateral damage.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
