President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he slipped away from Air Force One after a recent summit in Turkey because the Secret Service and military wanted him on a “different plane” due to a threat.
“I go by Secret Service and the military. They wanted me to go in a different flight, different plane,” Mr Trump said of sneaking off the presidential plane.
His comments confirmed a report that first appeared in The Washington Post on Monday saying the president stowed away in an airport catering container to slip into another plane while Air Force One — filled with White House officials, security and support staff, and reporters — was sent into the sky out of Turkey, essentially as a decoy, in case Iran made good on a credible threat of an attack.
“I just have to do what they say,” Mr Trump told reporters after a trip to Ohio.
Mr Trump had flown to July’s Nato summit in Ankara in a new Qatari-gifted and retrofitted red, white and navy blue jet.
But ahead of departing from Turkey, he said he would fly part of way home on an older-model baby blue Air Force One plane instead.
The president said at the time that the new luxury jet was being flown out ahead of his departure from Ankara to give some US troops based in the United Kingdom a chance to check out the new Air Force One.
In Ankara, Mr Trump boarded the old Air Force One jumbo jet in view of television cameras ahead of the plane flying to Royal Air Force Mildenhall in Suffolk.
The White House had not confirmed the Washington Post report.
Instead, White House communications director Steven Cheung relied on similar wording that he used during the trip itself, saying in a statement on Monday: “As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats.”