President Donald Trump didn’t just leave the White House press corps behind on a plane believed to be a potential target when he secretly slipped out of Turkey last month. Two of his most powerful Cabinet officials were left behind, too.
But one person who reportedly made the cut for Trump’s covert getaway was his young blonde aide Natalie Harp.
New details about Trump’s elaborate midair security ruse reveal that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent remained aboard the publicly identified Air Force One with reporters and other White House staffers while Trump secretly escaped aboard another government aircraft.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, joined Trump on the secret flight, along with Harp, White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino and director of Oval Office operations Walt Nauta, according to reports.
Rubio and Bessent were reportedly aware Trump was traveling on a separate aircraft. Their presence on the decoy plane also maintained separation within the presidential line of succession.
Still, the revelation adds a stunning new layer to the extraordinary lengths the administration went to conceal which plane was actually carrying the president amid concerns about a possible threat.
Trump flew into Turkey on July 7 for the NATO summit in Ankara aboard his new Air Force One luxury Boeing 747, a gift from Qatar’s royal family in 2025.
Trump used the luxury jet from Qatar for the first time to travel to the summit after spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars upgrading the aircraft’s security.
But after the summit, security concerns reportedly prompted Trump to switch back to an older model of Air Force One with more established security upgrades for the trip to Mildenhall Air Base in England before his return to the United States.
Trump publicly offered a much less alarming explanation.
He said he was switching planes “for old time’s sake” and suggested U.S. troops in England would get a chance to see the new plane.
Behind the scenes, however, the Secret Service had reportedly advised Trump to use the older aircraft because of security concerns.
Video showed Trump walking up the stairs of the older, baby-blue Air Force One in Ankara as reporters watched. A catering truck carrying containers used to transport meals could be seen positioned on the opposite side of the aircraft.
But Trump apparently had no intention of remaining on the plane.
With the help of the catering truck, the president was covertly moved away from the publicly identified Air Force One and taken to another U.S. government aircraft, reportedly an Air Force C-32A.
Hegseth, Harp, Scavino and Nauta were among those who reportedly went with him. Rubio and Bessent stayed behind.
So did several other senior White House officials, including Stephen Miller, Will Scharf, communications director Steven Cheung, Mike Needham, Ross Worthington and Monica Crowley.
And so did the White House press corps.
The reporters aboard the decoy flight believed Trump was traveling on the same aircraft after watching him board it.
Adding to the bizarre secrecy, members of the press said they were instructed to keep the window shades in the Air Force One press cabin closed while in Ankara.
Trump and his smaller circle, meanwhile, flew separately to the United Kingdom.
The aircraft publicly identified as Air Force One was not actually carrying the president. Technically, the “Air Force One” call sign applies only to an Air Force aircraft while the president is aboard.
Once in England, the administration reportedly engaged in another astonishing ruse to return Trump to Air Force One so that it appeared that was how he had flown to the United Kingdom.
“Mr Trump was brought by vehicle from the third plane that he had arrived on to the older Air Force One, boarded it through a different entrance and strode down the step from the upper left-side door as he would typically do,” The New York Times reported, citing a U.S. official.
Trump then returned to the United States aboard the newer Qatari-donated aircraft.
The White House’s secret plane swap sparked outrage after the maneuver became public, particularly because reporters and officials were allowed to continue aboard the aircraft everyone had been led to believe was carrying the president.
“So Trump and the White House lied about which plane Trump was on flying out of Turkey, setting up journalists who thought they were on the same plane as the president to possibly be the target of an Iranian attack while he secretly departed on a different one. Words fail,” journalist Aaron Rupar wrote on Threads.
Another commenter was even more furious.
“The word ‘deplorable’ doesn’t begin to describe this miserable excuse of a human.”
Threads user Gary Stweart wondered, “So they were expecting the whole plane to blow up and take all the media with it. What a prick.”
Trump has since defended the secret switch, telling CBS News’ Nancy Cordes that the military and Secret Service made the decision.
They “wanted me to go in a different flight,” Trump said Tuesday night.
The president confirmed there had been a threat but brushed off the danger as something that comes with the job.
“Any consequential president has a lot of threats,” Trump said.
But when asked why it was apparently too dangerous for the president to remain aboard the publicly identified Air Force One while journalists, Rubio, Bessent and other members of his administration continued on the aircraft, Trump pushed back on the premise.
“I think, actually, the plane that I flew on was at greater risk,” he said.
Trump also addressed the unusual order for reporters to close their window shades, saying they were “probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleazebags that we have to deal with.”
