President Donald Trump snuck off the apparently imperiled Air Force One with three top, longtime aides, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and a handful of others, but none of his other top Cabinet officials, according to a report.
Bombshell Report Reveals Cabinet Officials Left On Endangered Plane, While Trump Took Natalie Harp and Other Aides With Him
Aug 12th, 2026, 3:04 pm
AP Photo/Matt Rourke
The by-now-infamous incident has sparked angry and bewildered reactions from those who pointed out Trump left the White House press corps, some staffers and others were left as sitting ducks amid an assassination threat from Iran as he left the NATO Summit in Turkey last month.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino; Executive Assistant Natalie Harp and Walt Nauta, director of Oval Office operations, were with Trump as he was secretly ushered to a waiting catering truck, The Washington Post reported.
Hegseth later joined the group on the Air Force C-32A aircraft, which clandestinely flew them to Britain, the outlet had previously reported.
WashPo, citing an anonymous source and other “corroborating” material, said other, lower-profile aides were also present.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others at the highest level of government were among those who didn’t make the cut, according to the report.
Scavino, Harp and Nauta worked for Trump continuously in the years after his first term ended.
Trump later claimed he had simply deferred to the U.S. Secret Service and bizarrely said the military plane he took instead was actually at “greater risk.”
One journalist predicted the entire escapade would ultimately become a propaganda win for Iran.
“Yeah, this is going to so embolden Tehran that a threat like this caused the president to have to get into some sort of food cart to go to another plane that the memes are going to be lit,” Kim Dozier said this week on CNN.
“Either way, it makes the Iranians look like they are skilled assassins that made a president scuttle in fear for his life, and that is not the kind of message that the U.S. President wants to be sending while he’s trying to be tough in negotiations right now,” she added.
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