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ReutersPresident Donald Trump has confirmed that he secretly swapped planes as he left a Nato summit in Turkey last month due to a possible threat.
“I go by Secret Service and the military. They wanted me to go in a different flight, different plane,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “I just have to do what they say.”
The revelation comes after reports that Trump boarded Air Force One on 8 July in view of television cameras before being transported to a military aircraft with the help of a catering truck.
The last-minute switch has raised questions about whether those on the decoy plane were left in danger, but Trump maintained on Tuesday the military jet he boarded instead was at “greater risk”.
Officials told the BBC’s US partner CBS News that the US had detected a credible Iranian threat to fire a missile at the plane.
Journalists and some White House staff on board did not know the US president had been smuggled out as part of an elaborate ruse in response to a possible Iranian threat.
Trump has previously said he was Iran’s “number one target” during the summit in Ankara.
The clandestine manoeuvre last month came a day after the US renewed military strikes on Iran following a breakdown of negotiations between Washington and Tehran to end the war.
Trump had arrived in Turkey aboard a newer Boeing 747-8 donated by Qatar, but announced that he would leave on the old Air Force One “for old time’s sake”.
On 8 July, footage showed him boarding the presidential jet at Ankara airport.
But according to the Washington Post, he slipped off Air Force One on to a catering truck that had been elevated to plane level on the opposite side to where he had boarded.
He was then secretly taken to a smaller C-32A military aircraft – a modified Boeing 757 often used by the vice-president.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth boarded the C-32A separately using external stairs in an effort to make the flight appear normal, according to the newspaper.
Journalists and some White House staff boarded Air Force One and were reportedly told to close their window shades. They were unaware the president was no longer on board.
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