War with Iran in sixth month as Strait of Hormuz remains closed
President Donald Trump confirmed on August 11 that he had secretly switched planes in Turkey after attending a NATO summit, in an operation that involved Secret Service agents moving him out of an airport through a catering truck and onto a separate military aircraft bound for Britain. The White House had publicly identified Air Force One as his aircraft during the trip.
According to reports in the Washington Post and New York Times, US officials used such levels of subterfuge because they were concerned about an Iranian assassination attempt against Trump. The operation required Trump to board his jumbo jet in view of TV cameras before being hustled out by the Secret Service. Several White House staff and journalists remained on Air Force One, believing they were on the same plane as the president.
Cabinet members and senior White House officials remained aboard Air Force One as decoys during the operation, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, top domestic adviser Stephen Miller, and White House communications director Steven Cheung, the reports said.
When asked on August 11 why US officials had used such an elaborate ploy and kept the public in the dark until the story was leaked, Trump attributed the decision to his protective detail and military advisers. “I go by Secret Service and the military,” Trump told reporters. “They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane. Equal safety. But they wanted me to do it, so I do it. I do what they say.”
Trump also claimed, without providing evidence, that the secret military plane he flew on was at “greater risk” than the Air Force One jet the world saw him board. “I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for,” he said.
The image of Trump being moved through an airport catering container contrasts with the public persona he cultivated over decades, including after he survived an assassination attempt at a Butler, Pennsylvania, campaign rally in July 2024, when news photographers captured him raising his fist and mouthing “Fight, fight, fight” while being rushed offstage bleeding from his ear. Mohamad Bazzi, a Guardian US columnist and director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University, wrote that the catering-truck image “is a stark contrast to the tough guy brand he spent years cultivating” and an “antithesis to the image Trump projected” after the Butler assassination attempt.
The disclosure comes amid a US war against Iran that began in late February, when the US and Israel launched a series of air strikes against Iranian military and political targets. US and Israeli strikes in the war’s early days killed more than 30 senior Iranian military and political officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Iranian system replaced those officials, in part by appointing Khamenei’s son Mojtaba as the new supreme leader.
Iran has used its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz — through which more than a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes daily — as an economic weapon, closing the waterway at the start of the war and disrupting global energy markets. Trump has since sought a deal with Iran to reopen the strait and prevent the war from escalating into a broader regional conflict, but those efforts have stalled.
A memorandum of understanding reached in mid-June, which included reopening the Strait of Hormuz and lifting a US naval blockade against Iranian ships in the region, has collapsed. Iranian and US officials have described mutual distrust as an obstacle to a broader agreement, and tit-for-tat attacks by both sides have reignited fears of renewed escalation.
Iranian state media has highlighted the catering-truck detail in its coverage. A presenter on Iranian state television called the incident a “scandal stemming from fear of Iran’s military power” and described it as a source of “humiliation” for the US president.