Two planes, a president and a catering truck

President Trump pulled off a switcheroo that has a lot of people talking. He snuck off Air Force One and got on a different plane to fly back from a NATO summit, all because of intelligence that indicated Iran could be targeting his life. What happened and what are the implications? It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Myles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House. I'm Tom Bowman. I cover the Pentagon. All right, Deepa, so let's get into what happened or what was revealed this week about what happened last month with this plane switcheroo. Walk us through the timeline here. Yeah, so this was information that was first reported by The Washington Post earlier this week. And they revealed that President Trump, when he was leaving the NATO summit in Turkey last month, he boarded Air Force One like normal and the staff and press boarded that plane as well. But then he. He got onto a different plane secretly and flew to the UK on a plane separate from most of his staff and separate from the press corps, which is a huge aberration from normal travel protocol with the president. Right. And it was a pretty elaborate plot, right? I mean, I feel like I remember I read this story a couple of days ago and it involved a catering truck in some way, shape or form. Can you talk us through exactly how this happened? Yeah. So just for context here, the plane that Trump and everyone, who travels with Trump, including the traveling press corps, which just to give some detail here is usually around like 13 members of the press. That's photographers, you know, reporters, TV crew, things like that. Press staff, president, all get on Air Force One, which was the new plane gifted to the U.S. from Qatar that Trump was very excited about. Now, there were security concerns around how safe this aircraft was, especially given the fact that Turkey is really close to Iranian airspace. So upon. Upon departing Turkey, it gets announced that Trump is not going to be leaving on this same aircraft from Qatar. It's going to be the old Air Force One. And so there was kind of a switcheroo in terms of which plane people were getting on in the first place, just to add that context in there. So what happens is leaving the summit, the president boards the old Air Force One. The press sees him get on the plane, reports that out into their pool notes. But then to your point about the catering truck, this truck has gotten elevated up to the back exit door on the side of the plane that Trump enters. And he and a couple other White House staff members exit the aircraft and get onto this catering truck and then are moved to an entirely different plane. Which plane? So he ends up on a smaller aircraft, which also has safety capabilities. This is a plane that, you know, the vice president travels on sometimes. It's, you know, a safe aircraft, but it's not the same plane that the rest of his staff are on and then the press are on. And this is due to threats from Iran, that there was a possible attempt on Trump's life. And so he switched aircrafts, but didn't inform everyone else publicly, obviously, but then also like the folks who were traveling on this plane that was potentially threatened. Well, I want to dig into like the sort of unprecedented nature of how this happened more. But I want to bring Tom in here to talk about these threats, the sort of why did something like this happen? Do we know anything, Tom, about why this decision was made or the intel that informed this? Well, apparently Israel told the U.S., listen, there's a threat against the president from a shoulder-fired missile at the airport in Turkey. That was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Our colleague Daniel Estrin confirmed it with Israeli officials. So basically, a threat from the shoulder-fired missile at the airport. Now, any aircraft, whatever it is, it could be a fixed-wing aircraft, could be a helicopter. The greatest threat when you're landing or taking off, you're moving slowly and low, the big threat is from something like a shoulder-fired missile, a heat-seeking missile. Now, Air Force One and the second plane that Trump went on, it's called the C-32. It's a modified Boeing 757. They have sensors to pick up missiles coming in. They have lasers that could, let's say, disrupt the GPS of a large missile. They also have flares and chaff that they shoot out to sort of fool that incoming missile and they'll go after the. The heat, you see. I was on an aircraft helicopter, a Blackhawk helicopter in Afghanistan, and we're about 50, 100 feet off the ground. All of a sudden, they pop out these flares. It makes a pretty loud popping sound. I thought we were getting fired upon. Wow. But that's exactly what they do, again, to try to defeat that kind of a threat. Now, the Post is now reporting that the U.S. had low confidence in that Israel report that Trump faced a possible. Shoulder-fired missile threat. But here's the thing. You know, if you have that kind of report, you're going to take the utmost caution when the president's involved. I think this is what I was a little confused by, is that there's been so much talk throughout the Iran war, as this has dragged on for months and months, about Iran's military capabilities just being degraded and worn down. The idea that they would still be able to pose a credible threat to the United States president. Am I right to be surprised by that? Or can you square those things? No. Trump keeps saying, we've destroyed their Air Force, we've destroyed their Navy. That's beside the point. There are thousands upon thousands of these shoulder-fired missiles all over the world, number one. Number two, the threat from Iran now is with drones, the Shahed drones. They have thousands and thousands of those as well. You can't destroy all of them like you can't destroy every shoulder-fired missile. That is a threat now. And that's why the Strait of Hormuz is pretty much closed, you know, fewer than a dozen ships are going through the Strait before the war miles, 130, 140 per day. That's why we're all paying a lot more money for gas. Yeah, I mean, one of the big reasons I feel like this story has continued for longer than just a day or two is it does bring up these really interesting questions of transparency. And, you know, the press who were on Air Force One thought they were on the airplane, reported out that they were on the airplane with the president. I'm wondering how they are responding to this, how the White House Correspondents Association, for instance, which represents. This group of reporters that traveled with the president, what are they saying? For starters, what the press reports, and this goes for the traveling press corps, the White House press corps in general, for any of us who do reporting, we report what we can see. If an official tells us something, you know, we have to take some of that, especially in the case of, you know, what the White House is saying. And if we see the president board the plane, like that's what we have to report. The opportunity was denied to then, correct the record coming back to the U.S., right? If there had been more transparency from the White House to say, hey, this, this did happen after the fact, and we're giving you all the information now, then that would have been an opportunity to, one, for the White House to show transparency, and two, for reporters to correct the literal historical record of how the president traveled and where he traveled. This instance and how this unfolded really is concerning because it has the potential to undermine the work we do. And if we're sharing information about the movements of the president and, you know, where he is, how he's getting there, what he said, but then that's later discredited by the White House that we're covering, it really calls into question how we can ask our audiences and Americans and consumers of the news to trust what we report. I mean, you both have traveled with presidents and with cabinet officials. Can you give a sense of, I guess, how this all works and specifically how unprecedented this is? A similar situation actually did unfold more than two decades ago when Bill Clinton was president. He was traveling in Pakistan, and due to security threats, he had to travel on a different plane. That was not widely known or reported. They did tell one reporter. That was Susan Page, who was working for USA Today. She was also the president of the White House Correspondents Association, and she was told about the travel plans before they happened. And I will say, generally speaking, that's not the case. Generally speaking, it's pretty common for the Correspondents Association president to be filled in on pretty intense travel changes or plans like this. I mean, Deepa, the last thing before we go to break here that I just want to mention is it is interesting to see this response from the administration to a threat to the president's life. I guess I just wonder if this would have been different during the first Trump administration and whether you think or whether the administration is kind of colored by the fact that this is a president who has been targeted, numerous times in the recent past. I mean, it's not unique to Trump that the president has threats against his life. Anyone who is in that level on such a high level and holding that position has security threats. And even just to zoom out a little bit more, even when you're running for president, there are security threats. It's Secret Service's job to to go through these to act in the moment. I have been traveling with Trump before domestically when there have been changes to the motorcade route or changes of how like, you know, whether or not Air Force One has been lit up on the tarmac. Due to security threats of any kind of nature. It is true that there have been a lot of threats against Trump's life recently. Thinking of the White House Correspondents Association dinner that happened in April and the gunman that entered there, obviously, Butler, Pennsylvania and a number of other incidents. And I will say, like, those incidents are on Trump's mind. He often publicly talks about how he's had a lot of threats against his life. He claims that he's the president with the most threats against his life. He likes to talk about that. It's hard to connect the dots directly, though, at this point and say those. feelings that Trump possesses have a direct correlation to maybe taking more strict security measures. And listen, there's no question that Iran has targeted Trump, really, for the past six years, starting with his approval of the drone attack that killed Qasem Soleimani, the Iran Revolutionary Guard commander. And since then, they said publicly, we want to not only target Trump, but also Mike Pompeo, who was then Secretary of State, and also some senior military officers. I'm told that they're still being told by the FBI, they're still getting updates from the FBI about possible surveillance by Iranian agents. So it's still a very active threat. And it started, again, with the death of Qasem Soleimani and continues to this day. And clearly, with the killing of the Ayatollah Khamenei, I mean, there's no question that that threat from Iran has increased. All right. Well, we can leave it there. Tom, we'll let you get back to reporting. Thanks so much for joining us. OK, you bet. We're going to take a quick break. More in just a moment. And we're back, joined now by NPR congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt. Hi, Barbara. Oh, hello. So we're going to switch gears here and talk about a big topic that's been dominating specifically Democratic primaries this year. This is AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. It's a group that's poured millions of dollars into many races, very notably this month in Michigan. Senate primary on the Democratic side. But you've done some really interesting reporting, Barbara, about AIPAC's history with campaign finance and just how it's all playing out and where it's moving forward. I do think it's worth zooming out a little bit because I'm not sure a lot of people even understand, I guess, the history of AIPAC with this and even what exactly AIPAC is. So can we start there? It's a grassroots organization that was founded in the early 50s. It started to gain more clout in the 70s. It has an affiliated nonprofit that would sponsor trips to Israel for lawmakers. And essentially it was working on education, lobbying, you know, working to maintain relationships with both Republicans and Democrats in Congress and in the White House for decades. It's not partisan. It supports both parties and it has a single focus, which is this strong partnership between the United States and Israel. For decades, it did not give money to candidates. It wasn't airing ads. It had no super PAC. It had no PAC. There was a big shift on that ahead of the 2022 cycle. AIPAC decided to form a PAC. A super PAC, which is called the United Democracy Project, to start spending in elections. And this was a massive change for the organization. How much money are we talking at this point? Well, UDP, the super PAC, it spent $30 million in that Michigan Senate race that you were describing, the primary. Its preferred candidate, Congresswoman Haley Stevens, did not win. The progressive challenger, Abdul El-Sayed, did. And if we look at it over time, I mean, this is really just, I mean, we throw numbers out there in like the 2022 cycle. This is really just, I mean, this is really just, I mean, this is really just, I mean, the third cycle, you know, so this is still like fairly new. The Super PAC spending in 2022 was $26 million. It jumped to about $38 million in 24. And then UDP and its affiliated groups, this cycle over $62 million so far and counting, presumably. And there are instances, you know, for example, in Illinois, where Super PACs affiliated with UDP have popped up. One was like elect Chicago women. This is not uncommon in the world of Super PACs. Like often a national Super PAC will set up affiliated Super PACs. The national conversation, I think, at this moment sounds very much like APAC is the biggest spender and it has this like outsized influence. And so I talked to Brendan Glavin at Open Secrets. He's the director of insights there, and he tracks campaign spending. And he told me, like, if you lump the AI Super PACs that we've been seeing together this cycle, they've spent over $50 million. And so I'm like, well, that's a lot of money. And so I'm like, well, that's a lot of million dollars. Crypto Super PACs, about 72 million. So UDP, the APAC Super PAC, it's right in that ballpark. And to put it in perspective, all of those are going to be dwarfed by the spending that we will see in the general election coming from the Republican and Democratic leadership PACs, which typically spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the general election. OK, well, Barbara, I want to jump in here with a question because that's a lot of money that you're talking about. And as we know, there is a lot of money that goes into our elections. In the U.S. But from APAC here, what's the return on investment? Has it been paying off? Well, to help answer that question, actually, I talked to Danny Bahar. He's an economist and faculty at Brown University. And he had this very question, which is like, how effective is APAC? What is its win rate? Especially given how much it's sort of like singled out. Is it actually all more powerful than others? So he compared APAC's win rate in the 22 and 24 cycles to the biggest single issue PAC. And he said, well, it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of 17 of them. And he found that APAC is actually pretty average among them. I mean, it stands out in the sense that it's able to mobilize a lot of money. But he pointed out that in some ways, you could actually argue that that means it's maybe slightly less effective because they're spending more money and getting the same results as these other single issue PACs like the Sierra Club or Planned Parenthood. When you look at individual races, it's a mixed record. A big thing. And I think that's a big thing. So I think a lot of people looked at that race and thought that the strategy from APAC may have backfired. I mean, the reason I feel like this APAC has become a political issue, this cycle does feel directly connected to the war in Gaza, right? I mean, this was an issue politically in the 2024 election. Is that right? I guess. Do you feel like the reason that there's been so much backlash to APAC spending is directly connected to Gaza? Well, I think there is definitely something there about like divisions, particularly in the Democratic Party, about its support to Israel, given the war. And anything that touches on Israel these days has just become inflammatory. I don't think there's any question about that. But I do think it raises an interesting, broader question, which is in this constellation of super PACs and PACs, is that the only reason that it's being signaled out? Like it can mobilize a lot of money, certainly, as we talked about. But as we also talked about, like so have other groups. I want to play first a little bit of tape from Patrick Dorton. I asked him about this. He's the United Democracy Project. It is very concerning that anti-Israel candidates on the far left who are well out of the mainstream of the Democratic Party, many of whom were critical of President Biden and of Kamala Harris, have chosen to single out APAC in the primary process and discuss APAC and literally not mention any other organization. It is should be of concern. And we view it as anti-democratic. One, I think that this speaks to a growing sentiment, particularly among young voters, that they don't want big money in politics more generally. And what I find interesting is that APAC is a PAC you hear most about when people are sort of using it as a stand in for I just don't want money in politics writ large. And two, APAC is perceived as being a domestic proxy of the Israeli government. Sometimes the history you could get into, and that's a whole other podcast that's very interesting, APAC and the Israeli government certainly have not always been in lockstep. But we see candidates use APAC on the trail and in ads as a way to paint their opponent as being subservient to a foreign government. But there is a lot of debunking to do there. OK, talk to us about that, Barbara. What kind of debunking do you mean? I mean, the number of times I was working on this story and talking to people and they said, well, you know, like APAC is foreign money. That's the reason why people are so upset about it. It's but it is really permeating the ether. I mean, there was an interview a few weeks ago on CNN, a panel interview, and David Axelrod was there. And he said something along the lines of, you know, it's a legitimate question that people have if foreign agents should be spending, you know, this much money in the Michigan Senate primary. And Van Jones, the Democratic political analyst, was on the panel and he hopped in to clear things up that APAC is not foreign money. It's it's money coming from Americans who care about this issue. And he said, well, I did call him and ask him about this. And here's what he had to say. But it's very dangerous to say that American citizens, especially American Jews, can't express their political opinion and donate to a political cause that supports the country of their choice, that that somehow goes into this almost like a dual loyalty old stereotype that the Jews are really not loyal Americans. They really are part of some Jewish conspiracy. That's what kind of gets invoked when you come up with these massive conspiracy theories about APAC. You know, it would be illegal for foreigners to contribute in this way. And so, you know, the people who are donating are donating for ideological reasons, not partisan reasons, because they, you know, they support members of both parties. It's an ideological reason, like like the NRA or the Sierra Club. I guess I'm just curious from a more money each cycle. But at the same time, we're seeing this novel approach where candidates are specifically pointing at that support as a cudgel against the candidate. that AIPAC supports. And so I guess I'm wondering, do you think that is going to make the organization change its strategy or decide that they aren't going to spend money in the same way? I mean, I do think there is an interesting component of like, is it going to always be helpful for candidates to receive this endorsement, you know, or not? And there's a lot of interesting sort of, I think, challenges on the candidate side as well. But no, I don't think AIPAC is going to change tax. I mean, their goal is a strong US-Israel relationship. They're one in a whole universe of PACs and super PACs that put money towards candidates who, you know, share the same belief. And this is how our system operates now. And I think, you know, like if people are displeased with that system, it is a huge uphill battle, to say the least, to change that. But AIPAC itself is not a barrier to that changing no more than, say, any other super PAC. I do think, though, there is this bigger existential question for groups like AIPAC who want to change tax. And I think, you know, there's a lot of people who want to change tax. They want a strong US-Israel alliance. Because if you look at what has unfolded geopolitically and, you know, domestically here in just a few years, you know, the year after AIPAC started to get involved in campaigns in this way was the year that Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, something that many Jews in the world saw not just as an attack on Israelis, but as a threat against the Jewish people. And many went to support Jewish institutions and causes like AIPAC. I And then, of course, the war in Gaza has led to a real notable decrease in public support in the U.S. for Israel. And, of course, I think this is fueled more so by the war in Iran more recently. But you look at Congress, right? In July, nearly half of House Democrats voted to cut off aid to Israel. The overall effort failed, but those numbers surprised a lot of people. So I think putting aside the AIPAC spending question, there is this bigger overall question, I think, being had about the collapse of support for Israel. And I think, you know, there's a lot of people who And how groups like AIPAC will work to restore that if that is their main objective. Okay, let's take one more break. And then it's time for Can't Let It Go. And we are back. And it's time for Can't Let It Go, the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we just cannot stop thinking about politics or otherwise. And I will get us started here. And I would just like to say, happy Phoebe Bridger's Day. To you both. Yeah, of course it's coming. It's been six years in the making. For all those listeners who aren't familiar, I feel like a lot of listeners are. Phoebe Bridger's the sort of patron saint of indie girl rock music. One of my favorite artists of all time has not released an album in six years. And today, we got another one, guys. And I'm only halfway through. I listened on my walk into work. I got 30 minutes in and there's a lot of bangers. I'm just gonna say that I'm just like the multiple songs. I hit the repeat button, got the goosebumps. I'm just like, I am going to fully, there's gonna be a late night dog walk tonight where I just absolutely go do two full runs through it. And I'm excited. Also, such a smart strategy to say that you just listened on the way into work. But then once you got here, absolutely. I put it right down. I'm just thinking about politics when I'm here, Barbara. I'm grinding. I honestly can't get that emotional if I'm sitting at my desk. I feel like it's high risk to play Phoebe Bridger's in my headphones at my desk. Miles is just wiping away one single tear. Falling down as he hosts this pod. All right, Barbara, what can't you let go of? Well, I can't let go of, and this is like, I'm happy for this man. And I'm also just like, a little bit jealous. There was a story about a Maryland man, talking to a Florida man right now. So a Maryland man identified as Kenny G. And he bought two identical lottery tickets for the same lottery drawing and both wound up winning $50,000. So he got $100,000. He used his lucky numbers. What gives me hope about this is that he has apparently played the lottery over the years and has had like smaller success. And you know, I dabble. I would say I'm a dabbler. You're a lottery person? How did I not know that you were a lottery person? Well, I don't know what it says about me, but I think it says I'm a big dreamer. But a few weeks ago, I found $20 cash in my purse. And it felt like free money because I didn't know it was there. So I played the lottery. I won $15, which I was really excited about. And then it was pointed out to me that that's a loss. And I reinvested it back into the system until I was down to zero. So I've bought myself plenty of daydream tickets. But in this case, for this lucky guy, he bought more than a dream. He got $100,000. I mean, it's amazing. Do you have, I'm sure as a person, a lottery person, you have like a thing, do you have like a checklist of what you would buy immediately? Or what would you do with the money first? It's a separate podcast episode. I play this game so often. And I actually have a lot of time to check myself because I realize like, I think I ask people it too much. Like, and I think that they're like, what is wrong with her? It's a good icebreaker question, I feel like. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think, you know how they say like, there'd be signs? I think like you'd notice. If it were me, I feel like you'd notice. Like, wow, what's going on with her? Why is she always on vacation? Deepa, what can't you let go of? Okay, I have like a hot take for mine, which is that maybe we need to bring back gatekeeping just a little bit. Because, and it's not based in like actual experience yet, but I have like a fear. And I will describe to you this fear. So the Washington Post food critic, love his stuff. Love every take he has. Like he wrote a story recently where he was like, 5.30pm is the best time for a dinner reservation. And I was like, full endorsed. That's, yeah, 100% agree. Every restaurant he's reviewed, like places that I absolutely love in DC, I'm so glad they're getting coverage and attention. Here's the thing, though. This guy lives in my neighborhood. And so he, often is covering these like really small, tiny neighborhood spots that are so delicious and so good, have the best food. And I, I'm of two minds. Like one, I love that these places that make such great food are like such a great fabric of the community. Like many times our immigrant run spots, like fully love that they're getting all of this love and attention. But now I like am afraid that my favorite pupusa joint is going to have a giant line out the door. I don't want to wait in there. I know that that's selfish. And I know that that is a me problem. But like, I, I, yeah, I don't know, maybe, maybe a little bit of gatekeeping. No, I think this is an interesting dilemma. Because this is something we've been talking about, like we so the restaurant that's like a block away from my house got a great review in the New York Times last year. And there was a whole debate about whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, because it meant that like no one was going to be able to get in at all. And it was probably like prices were going to go up and all. But I feel like, here's where I came down on this. And I made this argument a lot was that, you know, I don't want to be able to get in at all. I don't want to be able to get in at all. And I think that margins for restaurants are very small, and many restaurants go out of business. And so I think the risk reward here is we would much prefer a long line and have a restaurant that we love survive. Yes. And be thriving. I was gonna say what you also could do is go to the papoosa spot, like every time you make a little bit of a scene to where you end up in the review, where they're like, gonna be like, but there was this weird girl in the corner, they seem to be fine with because she went there a lot. But like, I would avoid that maybe sit outside. Like, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I think if you could just add a weird enough vibe, the line won't get too long. I yeah, no, I love it. I love that they're getting all this love. But yeah, if you if you see me with the papoosa in my hand, you know why. All right, that's all for today. Our executive producer is Mathoni Maturi. Our producers are Casey Morrell and Bria Suggs. Our editor is Rachel Bay. Special thanks to Dana Farrington. I am Miles Parks and I cover voting. I'm Deepa Shibaram. I cover the White House and I'm Barbara Sprint. I cover Congress. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Happy Friday. Happy Friday.