‘Everyone on That Plane Was a Decoy’: David Axelrod Unnerved by Press Being Flown on Trump-Less Air Force One That Was Alleged Target

CNN commentator David Axelrod was unsettled by the White House’s maneuver to deal with an alleged threat against President Donald Trump.

On Monday, The Washington Post reported that, contrary to the official record, Trump did not fly out of a NATO summit last month in Turkey on an Air Force One jet. The move was meant to thwart a potential Iranian assassination threat amid the ongoing U.S. war on Iran.

Trump traveled to the summit aboard the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One plane, but upon leaving, the president said he would travel on the “former Air Force One,” which later landed in the U.K. before returning to the U.S. After boarding the “former Air Force One” in view of TV cameras, Trump was stealthily whisked away to a catering container, which was then transported to an Air Force C-32A, a U.S. official told the Post, which also reviewed documents corroborating the claim.

The official said the move made Air Force One the “decoy,” with members of the press and some White House staff on board.

Appearing on The Source shortly after the Post story broke, Axelrod noted that the threat to Trump must have been “extraordinary,” but journalists and White House staff were put on the “decoy” plane just the same:

There are elements of that trip that needed to be kept under wraps until after the president was safely in and out of those places. But the thing here that’s a little disturbing is that if the president, if they needed to take such extraordinary steps to protect the president because the threat level was so high, the American people deserve to know that the threat level was was that high in this particular case, that he had to take such an extraordinary measure.

And then the other piece of it is that, in fact, everyone on that plane was a decoy. If they felt that it was unsafe to be on the plane, then it was unsafe for everybody else to be on the plane as well. So, they at least deserve to know, if not, then than after why this was happening.

“Yeah,” host Kaitlan Collins replied, “because obviously if the plane was the target, because the president was on board and the idea was still that the president was on board, which was what everyone thought, it would still have been a target.”

Watch above via CNN.

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