President Donald Trump was secretly moved onto a different aircraft as he left Turkey last week after U.S. intelligence flagged a credible assassination threat from Iran, according to a Washington Post report that has set off a fresh round of scrutiny over the White House's handling of presidential security — and its own public statements.

Trump had been in Ankara for a NATO summit when the threat emerged. Rather than boarding the legacy Air Force One in full view of the traveling press, he was quietly transferred by catering truck to a smaller C-32A military jet, according to the report. The larger plane — carrying the White House press corps, with instructions to keep window shades closed for the flight — took off separately and served as a decoy.

Two Planes, One Target

The C-32A carrying Trump landed in Britain at roughly 10:20 p.m. local time; the decoy Air Force One and its press pool touched down only minutes later, according to The National's account of the operation. The maneuver was designed to obscure which aircraft the president was actually on in case of a missile or sabotage attempt.

The threat traces back to the funeral of Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, held over a week in early July, when regime loyalists openly called for Trump's death, and his successor, new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, vowed to "avenge" his father. U.S. officials have treated the rhetoric as an operational risk rather than mere bluster, given Iran's history of contract plots against former American officials.

WERE THE JOURNALISTS ON THE DECOY PLANE PUT AT EQUAL RISK?

The secrecy has drawn its own criticism. CNN's Barbara Starr publicly questioned whether the press corps flying on what amounted to a decoy aircraft were exposed to the same danger Trump was reportedly fleeing, a point Al Jazeera's coverage also raised. The White House has not detailed what, if anything, journalists aboard the decoy flight were told about the threat level before takeoff.

The episode also sits awkwardly against Trump's public posture at the summit, where he made no mention of any threat and continued a full schedule of meetings with NATO leaders. The contradiction between his composed public statements and the clandestine security operation happening around him is what prompted reporters to dig into the story in the first place.

What Happens Now

The near-miss adds a volatile new layer to an already tense U.S.-Iran standoff. Trump has separately demanded Tehran compensate the families of victims from recent Middle East hostilities, and Wall Street has been trading nervously on headlines out of the Strait of Hormuz, where oil shipping lanes remain a flashpoint. Markets ticked higher this week on hopes that a deal to de-escalate around the strait was within reach, even as the assassination threat report underscored how fragile that calm still is.

Congressional oversight committees are expected to seek briefings on the incident, and Secret Service protocols for foreign travel are likely to face renewed questions in the coming days.