CNN host Kaitlan Collins has exposed the sinister truth about President Donald Trump’s cloak-and-dagger escape from last month’s NATO summit in the face of a possible Iranian assassination plot.
Trump, 80, was seen boarding Air Force One in Turkey in front of reporters on July 8, the night after renewed military strikes on Iran prompted credible intelligence warnings of a threat to the president’s life.
However, a bombshell report by the Washington Post reveals that as part of an urgent security measure, the president was secretly shuttled to a decoy plane, an Air Force C-32A, via an airport catering truck. The vehicle is generally used to carry airline food for passengers, not to transport visiting heads of state.
The clandestine mission was so intensely guarded that some White House staffers, as well as reporters, believed Trump was flying with them on Air Force One out of Turkey, headed for the U.K.
Serious questions are now being raised about the risk to the lives of those who remained on the aircraft, which only a handful of people knew Trump was not actually traveling on given the threat level that required the subterfuge.
Speaking to Collins on The Source on Monday, CNN’s Chief Political Analyst David Axelrod—who flew on Air Force One while working as a strategist for President Barack Obama—said he was shocked that people were put in danger.
“It was kind of stunning to think that all those on the plane were essentially a decoy,” Axelrod said. “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.”
Acknowledging that the president needs to be protected, Axelrod also noted that the White House’s habit of giving the press pool reporters “the slip” was concerning.
“This is very unusual—the way they approached it and the secrecy surrounding it,” he said.
Axelrod also added that it was “a little disturbing” that if such extraordinary measures were put in place to protect Trump, “the American people deserve to know” how high the threat level was.
“The other piece of it is that everyone on that plane was, in fact, a decoy,” he added. “If they felt it was unsafe for the president to be on the plane, then it was unsafe for everybody else to be on the plane as well. So they at least deserved to know—if not then, then afterward—why this was happening.”
Collins reinforced that if everyone, including his enemies, believed Trump was aboard Air Force One, “it would still have been a target.”
Former CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr took to X after watching Axelrod and Jennings discuss the potentially dangerous decoy mission.
“Crucial: if the threat was so serious President could not be on AF1 WHY did AF conduct the mission?,” Starr wrote. “Iran thought he was on the flight. Wasn’t everyone else on board still at risk? why did AF think this was a legal order—why was it safe for everyone else to be on board?”
White House correspondent for the Huffington Post, S.V. Dáte shared an X post by the Washington Post’s national security reporter Dan Lamothe, who worked on the story, adding “In other words everyone aboard the real 747 AF1 — crew, guests, press pool — was considered expendable.”
On The Source, Collins pointed out that there is a precedent of “top secret” trips by other presidents, including Bill Clinton flying to Pakistan in an unmarked gray jet in March 2000, using Air Force One as a decoy to mitigate severe security and assassination risks.
The CNN host noted that the difference was the White House either told reporters at the time, or they found out about it in the immediate aftermath.
“It wasn’t a situation where, a month later, the Washington Post reported on it—which is how we learned what really happened,” she said.
Trump ally Scott Jennings was also on The Source, and admitted it was a “highly unusual” situation, but believed it sounded like a “very, very serious threat” to the president.
“This story raised the hairs on the back of my neck when you consider how they had to move him around,” Jennings said
“But you can only imagine....the level of threat and alarm that would have been required to set up this kind of deception. It must have been extremely high.”
Jennings added he believed that Trump is “going to continue to face this” every day for the rest of his term as president.
“I think this is just part of the reality of being Donald Trump,” Jennings said. “That’s very unfortunate, but I’m glad there are security personnel who know how to deal with it.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
Earlier on Monday’s episode of The Source, Collins noted journalists were asked to lower their window shades on the first Air Force One flight out of Turkey, calling it “extremely unusual and not something that typically happens.”
She pointed out the press sit on the right side of the plane, the same side the catering truck Trump was being transported in was situated.
Flying back to the U.S. on his Qatari Air Force One, the press asked the president why they were instructed to shut their blinds on the earlier flight. He noted, “Well, yeah... you’re, you know, probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleaze bags that we have to deal with.”
He added of a rumors of potential threat from Iran, “If they asked you to close your windows, probably they feel that way. They didn’t ask me to close mine, but if they did I would have done it.”
Collins pointed out that he wasn’t asked because he was actually on a different plane.
After being questioned if he was aware of a credible threat by Iran against Air Force One, Trump said to a reporter, “I’m number one on their list, before you. But if I go, you go, right? So perhaps someday you wanna change professions.”
