President Donald Trump huddled his ex-caddy and his "human printer" aboard a secret flight out of Turkey but left top Cabinet officials and the press corps to fly home on Air Force One — despite an assassination threat targeting him, according to a new report.
The 80-year-old president was captured by television cameras boarding Air Force One leaving the NATO summit on Aug. 10, but the Washington Post reported that Trump slipped off that plane minutes later and snuck aboard a smaller C-32A using a catering truck, and the newspaper followed up by reporting which aides and officials joined him and which ones took the decoy.
"Other passengers on the truck included Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff; Natalie Harp, the president’s executive assistant; and Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, according to a U.S. official familiar with the operation and corroborating material," the Post reported. "A few lower-profile aides also were present."
"Among those on the smaller jet was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who boarded the C-32A with external stairs in a manner that made him look like the senior-most official aboard the flight," the report added.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who's fourth in the presidential line of succession, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were not among the group on the smaller plane, and other officials on Air Force One were White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Communications Director Steven Cheung, deputy national security adviser Michael Needham and staff secretary Will Scharf, who was recently promoted to White House counsel.
Scavino has risen in Trump's orbit from a teenage caddy to social media manager and now runs the White House Presidential Personnel Office, while Harp – known as the "human printer" – constantly provides him with printouts of emails, news reports and social media reports.
Nauta is a Navy veteran who served as a valet in the first White House and was indicted along with the president in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.
Left behind on the decoy VC-25A — and, notably, kept in the dark — were the traveling press pool and an unspecified number of White House staffers who believed the president was still aboard.
Reporters were instructed to lower their window shades before takeoff, a request several found odd at the time but didn't question.
"They asked Trump later in the day why staff directed them to keep their windows closed throughout the flight from Turkey, the Post reported. "Trump responded that it was 'because you’re probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleaze bags that we have to deal with.' Trump said that he has a 'threat all the time' against his life, and that he is 'number one' on Iran’s 'list.'"
The Aviationist reports the ruse was "unknown even to some members of the White House staff who were on board the VC-25A," meaning the deception extended beyond journalists to Trump's own personnel. Both planes reportedly routed through RAF Mildenhall in the United Kingdom, where at least one outlet suggested a second switch back to the VC-25A may have taken place before the final leg to Washington.
Publicly, the administration has stuck to the official story.
Cheung, the White House communications director, said only that "there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats," declining to confirm operational details. The Secret Service and Air Force both declined to comment, and the White House has continued to maintain that Trump was aboard Air Force One "as usual."
Turkish officials, according to Middle East Eye, doubt the underlying assassination threat was real at all, with one source calling it fabricated — possibly by Israeli intelligence — to derail Trump's Iran negotiations and complicate his relationship with Turkish President Erdogan over issues including a potential F-35 sale.