Members of the press aren’t happy that the Trump administration cleverly used them as a decoy last month to protect President Donald Trump.
On July 8, The New York Times reported that the president would be leaving this year’s NATO summit in Turkey aboard the original Air Force One despite having flown to the summit aboard a Qatari-gifted Boeing 747-8 that was designed to serve as a new and better Air Force One.
According to the Times, however, the Trump administration changed its travel plans for the president close to the last minute after learning of a dire security threat from Iran.
“President Trump flew out of Turkey on Wednesday night on the old Air Force One instead of his new Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8 as a security precaution related to the resumption of hostilities with Iran,” the Times reported.
The president was livid at the leak to the Times about the Iranian security threat and subsequently tried to subpoena the paper’s reporters:
: “ , ”
The Justice Department withdrew subpoenas this week for phone and family records… pic.twitter.com/nG6vz53iJz
— M.A. Rothman (@MichaelARothman) July 25, 2026
Weeks later, a new report from The Washington Post published this Monday revealed further information about the clandestine airplane switch, including the bombshell that the “old” Air Force One had in fact served as a decoy.
After the president boarded Air Force One on camera, he was secretly shuttled to a smaller Air Force C-32A “via an airport catering truck typically used to load meals and other supplies preflight,” according to the Post.
Meanwhile, White House staff and members of the media remained on Air Force One as a decoy just in case any terrorists or other bad guys had their eyes set on taking down the plane.
“[J]ournalists who thought they were traveling with the president aboard the legacy Air Force One were not notified that he had changed aircraft or made aware of the extent of the threat on Air Force One,” according to the Post.
Responding to this new report while appearing on CNN’s “The Source” this Monday, media figure David Axelrod issued several complaints.
First, he said the public should have been made aware of the threat from Iran.
“The thing here that’s a little disturbing is that … if they needed to take such extraordinary steps to protect the president because the threat level was so high, the American people deserve to know why the threat level was that high in this particular case,” he insisted.
Second, Axelrod marveled at the fact that the press had been used as a decoy.
“Everyone on that plane was a decoy,” he bluntly stated. “If they felt that it was unsafe to be on the plane, then it was unsafe for everybody else to be on the plane as well. So, they at least deserve to know, if not then, then after why this was happening.”
Yet the Trump administration’s use of decoys wasn’t new. Something similar happened when then-President Bill Clinton traveled to Pakistan in March of 2000.
“The president arrived for his six-hour visit in an unmarked plane that landed only after a decoy jet with official markings had touched down first, and a Secret Service agent bearing a resemblance to Clinton disembarked,” according to the Post.
In a statement to the Post, former acting Secret Service Director Ronald L. Rowe Jr. defended the current president’s use of a decoy.
“We need to keep the ‘secret’ in Secret Service,” he said. “The public should know what the president is doing on a daily basis, but when it comes to the methods by which the Secret Service keeps the president safe, that should remain out of public view.”
Speaking with the Times, former Bush- and Obama-era Secret Service agent Donald Mihalek also defended the administration.
“Anytime the president is in a theater where there’s potential combat danger, the Secret Service has employed protective counter measures including the use of a decoy,” he said. “The agency is not the agency of public affairs. The agency is the agency of the Secret Service. Their number one job is to keep the president safe.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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