{"id":2479,"date":"2026-07-09T17:15:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=2479"},"modified":"2026-07-09T17:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:15:07","slug":"maggie-haberman-calls-out-trump-plane-switch-excuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=2479","title":{"rendered":"Maggie Haberman Calls Out Trump Plane Switch Excuse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<p><em>New York Times<\/em> scribe <strong>Maggie Haberman<\/strong> called out President <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong> over his excuse for switching planes on the way home from the annual NATO Summit in Turkey, calling security concerns with the new Air Force One a \u201crelated complication\u201d of the Iran war.<\/p>\n<p>Trump had claimed the $400 million jet, a gift from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/trump-rips-into-critics-as-fury-intensifies-over-qatar-jet-only-a-fool-would-not-accept-this-gift\/\">Qatari government<\/a>, was \u201cflying to Europe to one of the big bases\u2026so the soldiers can see it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That claim raised eyebrows, including from former CIA Director <strong>Leon Panetta<\/strong>, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/this-is-a-cover-story-leon-panetta-says-trump-is-hiding-the-true-reason-behind-air-force-one-switch\/\">called the given reason \u201ca cover story.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It was later reported that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/videos\/secret-urged-trump-old-air-055942358.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">U.S. Secret Service had asked the president<\/a> to switch planes as a security precaution.<\/p>\n<p>Appearing Wednesday on CNN\u2019s <em>The Source with <strong>Kaitlan Collins<\/strong><\/em>, Haberman noted the still developing reporting on Trump\u2019s mysterious plane swap and also cast doubt on Trump\u2019s reason for doing so.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a little hard to believe,\u201d she said, before <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/kaitlancollins\/status\/2075031376873611717\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">going on to link <\/a>the security issues with the Iran war:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>KAITLAN COLLINS: Well, Maggie, you mentioned the president and these trips. You know, one thing that was bizarre about today is there is nothing the president has talked about more, maybe beyond the renovations, than this new Air Force One that he has, the Qatari gifted plane.<\/p>\n<p>He just started flying it last week. He\u2019s only taken it on a handful of trips, and he flew it to Turkey. But then he announced that he was sending the new plane ahead to a military base, and he would take the old Air Force One, which he has denigrated and said was, you know, an old plane out of date, embarrassing to meet with world leaders flying on that plane.<\/p>\n<p>He flew that back from Turkey to the United Kingdom. And there was even video of him walking from the old plane. We\u2019re showing that now and getting on the new Air Force One when he says it\u2019s just for, for troops to, to tour it, is that something that you buy?<\/p>\n<p>MAGGIE HABERMAN: It\u2019s a little hard to believe that this is the only reason that that happened, for all of the reasons you suggested, my colleagues, I believe, are reporting and my colleagues, Tyler Pager and Shawn McCreesh, have been in Turkey covering this summit, and my colleagues are reporting, I believe, that the Secret Service had concerns about what could happen.<\/p>\n<p>And, you know, I don\u2019t want to mischaracterize their reporting because this is still all developing, but it does raise questions about what exactly this new Air Force One \u2014 which was gifted by Qatar to the U.S. and then will be given to President Trump when he leaves \u2014 how equipped it is with the kind of defense systems that the current Air Force One is.<\/p>\n<p>This plane was rushed into circulation because President Trump wanted to fly on a new Air Force One, because the two that he had commissioned during his first term weren\u2019t going to be ready for a variety of reasons, some Boeing\u2019s fault, some an issue with how contracts were renegotiated.<\/p>\n<p>But when you rush something, I mean, you know, when when Jonathan and I reported in <em>The Times<\/em> that they were looking at this Qatari plane, lots of people told us they could not imagine a scenario where it could properly be fitted with its defense capabilities in time to protect a president, to do what Air Force One has to do.<\/p>\n<p>And so my question is, despite the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that were already spent to retrofit this plane for security, what remains?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Watch above via CNN.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York Times scribe Maggie Haberman called out President Donald Trump over his excuse for switching planes on the way home from the annual NATO Summit in Turkey, calling security concerns with the new Air Force One a \u201crelated complication\u201d of the Iran war. Trump had claimed the $400 million jet, a gift from the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/The-Source-With-Kaitlan-Collins-9-05-08-pm-2026-07-08-0.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}