The two most senior members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, flew out of last month’s NATO summit in Turkey on what was effectively a decoy plane following an Iranian threat, while Trump was secretly moved to a smaller military jet, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.
The official, who was briefed on the situation and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details of presidential travel, said Rubio was aware of the switch and details of the threat behind it but could or would not say why he had stayed on the plane. The official said Bessent was likely aware but did not know for sure.
The official, however, noted that security precautions for the president – especially one who has been the target of several assassination attempts – are more robust than those for even top members of the Cabinet.
Under the U.S. Constitution, the secretaries of State and Treasury follow the vice president and the highest ranking member of each chamber of Congress in the presidential line of succession.
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Trump had flown to the annual gathering of NATO country leaders in Ankara, Turkey, in a new Qatari-gifted and retrofitted red, white and navy blue jet. But ahead of departing Turkey, he said he would fly partway home on an older-model baby blue Air Force One plane instead.
The president at the time said the new luxury jet was being flown out ahead of his departure from Ankara to give some U.S. troops based in eastern England a chance to check out the new Air Force One.
The Washington Post reported this week that Trump wasn’t on the old Air Force One on the return flight from Turkey and that he instead was smuggled onto another jet via a catering cart to avoid a possible Iranian assassination plot. The ruse was carried out as journalists and some White House staff members were led to believe they were on the same plane as the president as he began his journey back to Washington.
The New York Times and CBS News had reported last month that intelligence officials had raised concerns about a potential attack on the president or his jet, triggering additional precautions and the decision not to use the newly inaugurated aircraft gifted to Trump by Qatar for the first leg of Trump’s trip home from Ankara.
Trump acknowledged the transfer late Tuesday.
“It’s only up to the Secret Service. I just follow what they’d like to do, so I go by Secret Service and the military,” the president told reporters at Joint Base Andrews. “They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane, equal safety, but they wanted me to do it, so I do it, I do what they say.”
