President Donald Trump secretly switched planes to evade an Iranian assassination attempt while departing from last month’s NATO summit in Turkey, media reports reveal. While the White House announced that the president was on Air Force One, a Boeing 747, he had boarded a smaller US Air Force C-32A to elude Iranian assassins.
“An Iranian assassination threat against President Donald Trump prompted an extraordinary operation last month in which he flew secretly from Turkey on an alternate military aircraft while the White House said he was aboard Air Force One,” The Washington Post reported, breaking the story. “The maneuver meant that Trump’s actual location was concealed from the American public and many senior U.S. officials for hours.”
The secret flight from Turkey was organized on July 8, a day before Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s burial in northern Iran. The timing of the incident suggests that Israel may have alerted the U.S. to the Iranian threat. A day after President Trump’s secret flight from Ankara, The Wall Street Journal reported on July 9 that “Israel shared new intelligence with the U.S. that it said indicated a fresh Iranian plan to kill President Trump.”
The Secret Service and White House staffers undertook an elaborate “deception operation” to conceal the president’s departure plan from Ankara, The Washington Post continued:
The administration has claimed that Trump departed Turkey on July 8 on the former Air Force One. Trump announced on social media that he would use the “former Air Force One” rather than the plane that flew him there, a newer Boeing 747-8 gifted to the United States by Qatar. The security of the Qatar-provided aircraft has been called into question, and Trump said last month after the trip that it would undergo additional upgrades.
In Ankara, Trump boarded the old Air Force One jumbo jet in view of television cameras. He was secretly shuttled minutes later to a smaller plane — an Air Force C-32A — via an airport catering truck typically used to load meals and other supplies preflight, according to the U.S. official and corroborating material reviewed by The Post. That made Air Force One a “decoy” with media and some White House staff aboard, the official said. (…)
A credible threat to Trump involving Iran set the “deception operation” in motion, the U.S. official said. The New York Times and CBS News reported last month that intelligence officials flagged a specific threat of an attack on the president or his jet, triggering additional precautions.
There are decades-old concerns in the U.S. government of Iranian terrorism plots against American officials, including Trump. Those fears have escalated recently as a result of Washington’s role in the killing of Iranian military and political leaders.
The operation, and the Iranian threat, came days after the president began using the newer Boeing 747-8 gifted by Qatar for use as Air Force One. Trump flew to Turkey on that aircraft after the red, white and blue jet underwent upgrades costing hundreds of millions of dollars. It was fielded by the Air Force in July but lacks some of the defensive countermeasures included in the legacy Air Force One. (…)
To exit that plane without being seen by those uninvolved in the operation, Trump and several aides stepped aboard an airport catering truck, which was elevated plane-side using hydraulics and positioned at a door on the opposite side of Air Force One’s entrance, according to the U.S. official and other corroborating material. (…)
The blue-and-white C-32A, a modified Boeing 757 used to transport U.S. government officials, had been flown to Turkey along with the legacy Air Force One and the former Qatari jet to support the president’s visit, the U.S. official said. Like Air Force One jumbo jets, it is emblazoned with the words “United States of America” and can be used to transport the president or vice president. But it typically does so with the “Air Force One” or “Air Force Two” call sign, not a nondescript moniker.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boarded the C-32A separately using external stairs, part of an attempt to make the flight appear typical, according to the U.S. official and other materials reviewed by The Post. Hegseth flew with Trump to Britain on the same plane, this person said.
Days ahead of the foiled assassination attempt, Iranian leaders and regime supporters were openly threatening President Trump’s life. During the weeklong funeral of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (from July 3 to 9), regime loyalists called for the murder of the president and his senior administration officials.
In a written statement aired by the regime-run media, Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, vowed to “avenge” the killing of his father and slain tyrant. Mojtaba, who failed to show up at his father’s funeral, reportedly declared in writing that agents of the Mullah regime spread “across the world” were prepared to carry out a revenge attack “soon.”
During President Trump’s first term in office, Iran’s former Ayatollah Khamenei himself called for his assassination over the killing of top Iranian terror operative Qassem Soleimani in a 2020 U.S. drone strike in Baghdad. After President Trump resumed his second term, Iran renewed its bid to assassinate him. In 2024, U.S. law enforcement busted a three-member Iranian-backed terror cell plotting to kill him. In 2025, top Iranian clerics issued a fatwa, or a binding Islamic edict, for the murder of President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. The fatwa declares President Trump an “enemy of Allah” and offers rewards in the afterlife to his would-be assassins.
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