The Huge Lie That Put Everyone in Danger

The President of the United States was secretly smuggled out of Turkey in the back of a catering truck. Our thoughts on how this 3-plane fiasco tells you everything you need to know about Trump.

Last month, the President of the United States was smuggled out of a country in the back of a catering truck. You heard that right.

To understand how we got here, you first have to understand the story of these three planes.

Plane One: Air Force One

First brought into service in 1990, Air Force One has served 6 presidents, flown millions of miles around the world, and been one of America’s most enduring symbols of power and prestige on the world stage.

Yet for Trump, a man accustomed to gold adorning (literally) everything, the 30-year-old plane has long failed to live up to his expectations. It wasn’t big enough. It wasn’t luxurious enough. It wasn’t Trump enough.

So in 2025, Trump demanded a new one. Trump wanted something grander. He also really wanted a plane to take with him after he left office – at taxpayer expense – to put in his presidential library.

Enter Plane Two.

Plane Two: Qatari Force One

Just a few months after retaking office, Trump accepted a $400 million Boeing 747-8 jet, “donated” from the government of Qatar. This type of gift from a foreign government is totally unprecedented, mainly because it’s literally illegal thanks to the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution that bars federal officials from accepting gifts or other benefits from foreign governments without Congress’s approval. Obviously, this immediately raised glaring questions about corruption and conflicts of interest.

On the exact same day as the jet “gift” was announced, Trump also announced a $96 billion Boeing deal by Qatar Airways, part of a broader U.S.-Qatari deal valued at more than $243.5 billion. On the same day. But sure. Just a gift.

Trump was thrilled.

But there was a problem.

The plane was nowhere near being ready to serve as Air Force One. It had to be gutted, swept for bugs, and then retrofitted at a cost (to the American taxpayers!) of more than $400 million.

When it was hastily rolled out as the new Air Force One and went on its first overseas trip to Turkey, it hit a snag: it didn’t have the defensive capabilities that the old Air Force One had. The plane Trump had wanted so bad wasn’t actually able to do the one thing it was supposed to do — protect the president. In the face of his own war in Iran and a credible safety threat, his fancy plane was totally useless.

Which brings us to Plane Three.

Plane Three: The Escape Plane

After the NATO summit in Ankara, Trump was facing what is now being called a “credible assassination threat” against him from Iran.

So Trump’s team devised an elaborate ruse.

Trump would publicly board the old Air Force One while cameras rolled for reporters, his staff, and the world to see.

Then the reporters, who typically stand on the tarmac outside while Trump boards, were loaded onto that same plane. Once they were seated, they were told to shut their window shades because “Secret Service requested” it. What was then reported was that he flew the old Air Force One to England, where he then transferred to his new Qatari jet for the final flight back home.

That wasn’t true.

In reality, after boarding Air Force One, Trump then slipped off the plane through a separate exit into … an airport catering truck. This nondescript truck drove across the tarmac to the third plane, which he ultimately flew to England before being whisked back onto Air Force One to make his camera-ready exit from the plane, as if he’d been on it all along.

The journalists in the press pool who flew with Trump had no idea. The American people had no idea. Worst of all, perhaps, many of his own aides, and even members of his Cabinet had no idea. They boarded the plane believing the president was on board with them, when in reality, they were being used as an expendable decoy.

Analysis courtesy of the Washington Post

For a decade now, Trump has been promising that Americans are never safer, nor America stronger, than when he’s at the helm. Yet after years of making the world more dangerous by attacking our allies, pulling out of international arms control deals, launching new wars across the world, and otherwise shitting on 80 years of American global leadership, we all now know that the President of the United States had to be smuggled out of a foreign country in a catering truck while other Americans were unknowingly left behind on a decoy plane.

When it came time to choose, Trump didn’t make sure everyone around him was safe. He made sure he was.

And if you thought it couldn’t get worse, it does!

Once everyone was on Trump’s Qatari jet for the trip back to the States, Trump was asked by reporters why they’d been told to close the blinds on Air Force One during their flight.

Trump responded by saying he’s “number one on [Iran’s] list,” before adding:

“But if I go, you go. Right?”

When Trump actually thought he might go down, he not only chose not to warn those around him, but left them to be sitting ducks on a plane that quite literally could’ve been blown out of the sky.

Even after the flight, the White House lied about what happened. Trump said he’d used the old plane “for old time’s sake.” The White House denied reports about his Qatari jet lacking defensive capabilities, and went so far as to subpoena the New York Times reporters who reported on the security concerns surrounding his Qatari jet. They were ordered to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan in an effort to force them to reveal their sources in a gross violation of First Amendment freedoms.

After a federal judge pushed back on their attempts, the DOJ withdrew the subpoenas, even as prosecutors made careful note that they reserved the right to subpoena the reporters again in the future.

Think about this in its entirety.

Had the Iranian threats been acted upon, hundreds of people — including the Secretaries of State and Treasury — would’ve died because the President of the United States lied to them.

Put simply, in Trump’s America, it doesn’t matter whether you support him or not. It doesn’t matter whether you’re MAGA or not. Man or woman, adult or child, if Trump has to choose between himself and you? He’s choosing himself every day of the week.

Trump promised America First. Turns out he meant Trump First.