Shoulder-fired missile threat prompted Trump’s plane ruse, source says

A specific threat of a shoulder-fired missile targeting Air Force One emerged on the final day of the NATO summit in Turkey, according to a person familiar with the situation. This prompted US officials to devise a covert plan to discreetly remove President Donald Trump from the summit on an alternate jet. The threat was deemed serious enough to have potentially endangered the President's life, whether he traveled on the legacy Air Force One or the Qatar-donated aircraft he used to attend the summit.

The source of this information was not disclosed, but officials believed it to be credible due to the precise nature of the Iranian knowledge of Trump's travel arrangements in Turkey. The military, Secret Service, and other officials quickly formulated the plan to transfer Trump to another plane within hours. Throughout his final day at the conference, Trump repeatedly expressed concern over Iranian threats on his life to reporters.

While CNN reported later that Israel had provided the United States with intelligence suggesting Iran had a new plan to assassinate Trump, some officials at the time remained skeptical, perceiving it as part of a broader Israeli strategy to sway Trump's decisions regarding Iran.