Donald Trump abandoned Air Force One for a decoy military plane last month amid a reportedly Iranian assassination threat. He took his loyal aide, Natalie Harp, with him while leaving senior cabinet officials behind. The president slipped away in a catering truck after departing a NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey.
Marco Rubio and Scott Bessent remained aboard Air Force One while Donald Trump traveled separately
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and top White House aide Stephen Miller all stayed on Air Force One after Donald Trump learned of the threat, the Washington Post reported. Trump instead boarded a catering truck that carried him to a waiting Air Force C-32A, the decoy aircraft.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino and Walt Nauta, director of Oval Office operations, reportedly joined Trump inside the truck for the switch. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boarded the C-32A separately. Hegseth used the plane’s staircase “in a manner that made him look like the senior-most official aboard the flight.”
The outlet noted that those who traveled with Trump in the catering truck have long-standing ties to him. They have worked at Mar-a-Lago between his two presidencies, including through two impeachments and multiple criminal investigations. Nauta, Trump’s former valet, was also a co-defendant in the classified documents case. He was accused of helping obstruct federal efforts to retrieve sensitive materials from the Florida estate.
Natalie Harp has remained close to Trump for years and has been dubbed the “human printer.” This is because of her habit of trailing him with a portable printer to hand him news articles, emails, and social media posts rather than have him read them on a screen. Her devotion to the president was also detailed in Michael Wolff’s book, which reported the Secret Service had flagged her as a potential security risk.
Journalists traveling with the administration outside Ankara were not informed of the threat at the time. And it remains unclear whether the cabinet officials aboard Air Force One knew they were flying separately from the president.
Originally reported by Devanshi Basu for Mandatory.
