Trump Used a Plane Full of His Friends As Bait

The president hid inside a catering cart to escape a credible threat. That plane, packed with his allies, was allowed to take off anyway.

When it came out this week that Trump was forced to sneak off of Air Force One hidden in a catering cart and secretly fly out of Turkey to avoid a credible threat of attack from Iran, my first reaction was, “of course.”

While not even all that original (Taylor Swift has been sneaking around in a suitcase for security purposes for years), the lunacy is befitting the Trump era. Even the screenwriter of the iconic Harrison Ford movie, Air Force One, told the New York Times he couldn’t imagine scripting it.

But the shock value isn’t what gets me. It’s the wanton callousness that the whole episode exposes. Because even as Trump’s team assessed that it was so dangerous to fly on Air Force One he needed to be snuck out of there in a catering cart, they let everyone else on that flight take off.

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As this White House tries to silence me, please help elevate my voice. Order my book, The Day After, and send Trump the message that I won’t be censored.

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The decoy plane was packed with administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, along with the president’s aides, and members of the advance team.

What’s most chilling to me, though, is that the plane was also carrying journalists. That, right there, tells you everything you need to know about how Trump and this administration feels about the press. Shoot them out of the sky for all they care.

The journalists aboard Air Force One had no idea they were being used as a decoy amid a credible assassination threat. And if something had happened to them, I think we can guess how Trump would respond. It would be as horrifically unfeeling as his response to the deaths of service members during his pointless war in Iran— which, ironically enough, is why this threat existed in the first place.

This is maybe the most dramatic illustration of that attitude, but it’s certainly not the first. I’ve personally been on the receiving end of the administration’s disdain for anyone who dare speak up and tell the truth.

I wear it as a badge of honor.

All this week, I’ve been writing about the death threats and harassment I’ve dealt with since Trump put me on a list of “Media Offenders.” I’ve been fighting back by continuing to do what I’ve been doing for a decade as a creator in the independent media space. And most recently, I published my new book, The Day After, which is now available. If you order a copy, you send a message to this White House that their efforts to silence me are only affording me a bigger platform and a louder voice. Your support means I can keep going.