U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he boards Air Force One, en route to Geneva, Ohio, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., August 11, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
President Donald Trump demanded the Supreme Court save his stalled White House ballroom by invoking an Air Force One missile threat he once flatly denied.
The Justice Department filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court on Thursday, asking the justices to block a federal appeals court order that has halted above-ground construction on the $400 million project.
That order is set to take effect Aug. 21.
In its filing, the government listed six recent assassination attempts it says make the ballroom a national security necessity.
Among them was "the threat of a missile attack against Air Force One on July 8."
That missile threat, however, is one Trump spent weeks insisting did not exist.
On July 8, hours before secretly leaving Turkey, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was switching planes. Meanwhile, most staffers and reporters were left aboard the original flight.
"For old time's sake," he wrote on Truth Social, he would take the older Air Force One — to let military personnel in Britain get a look at the new Qatari-gifted jet.
When reporters asked Trump directly about a security concern after he landed, he shut the question down.
"No. No. Why would there be?" Trump told reporters.
White House communications director Steven Cheung went further, attacking an MS NOW reporter who had written that the switch was driven by security concerns about the new plane.
"Complete fake news," Cheung wrote, CNN reported, adding the reporter "has no idea what she is talking about."
Five days after the flight, on July 13, Trump went on Fox News to describe the state of Iran's military.
"They got nothing," Trump told Fox News. "They have no Navy. They have no Air Force. It's all gone."
Then, on Aug. 11, Trump reversed course.
"I guess there was a threat out there," Trump told reporters, CNN reported. "I didn't really ask too much about it."
According to the New York Times, Trump had been secretly removed from Air Force One in a catering container, while the plane was sent into the sky anyway — with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, senior aides, and reporters aboard as unwitting decoys.
Now his own lawyers are using that flight as Exhibit A for why the Supreme Court should let the ballroom be built.