Trump’s Controversial Plane Swap Gets Netflix ‘Instadoc’ Treatment
Donald Trump’s controversial plane swap is getting the Netflix Instadoc treatment.
The Decoy Plane “pieces together what really happened” on July 8, when the president boarded Air Force One after a NATO summit in Turkey, then slipped off the plane via a catering truck and secretly flew out of the country on a different, smaller aircraft.
New Netflix doc features interviews with people who experienced Trump plane switch
The switch happened after the Secret Service learned of a possible Iranian plot to assassinate the president. But the price of getting Trump out of Turkey unscathed was leaving the crew and remaining passengers – including the White House press pool and Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent – on Air Force One, where they were exposed to the risk that the plane would be shot down by an Iranian missile.
The doc will feature interviews with people who have firsthand knowledge of the plane switch incident, including Gram Slattery, Reuters White House reporter; Alex Brandon, AP photographer; and Carol Leonnig, MS NOW investigative reporter. Dan Lamothe, the Washington Post reporter who was part of the team that broke the story; Robert McDonald, a former Secret Service agent; and Wanda Joell, a former Air Force One crew member, also provide insight and commentary.
Instadoc: The Decoy Plane premieres September 4 on Netflix.
‘The Decoy Plane’ interviewee says he’s ‘never seen’ anything like Air Force One decoy move
In a teaser for The Decoy Plane, Brandon says that he suspected something strange was going on even before he and the rest of the reporters boarded the plane.
“As we get on the tarmac and we round and I look at Air Force One, I see those catering vehicles up against the side of Air Force One,” he recalls. “There’s one at the front and one at the back. And I have never seen that before. Forty years doing presidents. Never seen that before.”
After the switch was revealed by the media, Trump didn’t deny the reports that he’d been spirited out of Turkey on a different jet.
“I go by Secret Service and the military. They wanted me to go in a different flight, different plane… I just have to do what they say,” he said (via the Associated Press). “I guess there was a threat out there. I didn’t really ask too much about it. I get a lot of threats.”
As far as the fact that the move might have put other people at risk, Trump was unapologetic.
“I don’t know. I think actually the plane that I flew on was at greater risk.” he said. I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for.”
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