Members of Trump's cabinet remained on decoy plane, after president's quiet exit

Two members of US President Donald Trump's cabinet flew on a decoy plane last month that Trump secretly exited in order to board a different flight, according to the BBC's US partner CBS News.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent remained on board what was believed to be Air Force One - the term normally used to refer to the plane carrying the US president.

They were travelling home from a Nato summit in Turkey. The separate flight was provided to Trump due to a perceived security threat posed by Iran.

Trump initially entered the same plane as his officials and members of the press, before secretly transferring to a military plane before takeoff.

The elaborate ruse involved him hiding on a catering truck to move between the two aircraft on 8 July.

The label Air Force One applies to any plane carrying the president, but in this case the original craft kept the call signal despite Trump's exit - thereby becoming a decoy.

According to CBS, Rubio and Bessent were among the limited group who were aware that Trump had changed aircraft, but remained on board the first plane in order to maintain the line of succession in case something happened to the president.

In the event that the president dies or is incapacitated, Vice-President JD Vance would take power, followed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate.

The secretary of state comes next in line, followed by the treasury secretary.

Others who stayed on the initial aircraft that remained designated as Air Force One included White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Steven Cheung, the White House's communications director.

Meanwhile the smaller aircraft that flew Trump out of the Turkish capital Ankara was reportedly also transporting Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary. Trump was also accompanied by his executive assistant Natalie Harp, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, and Walt Nauta, director of Oval Office operations.

The BBC has contacted the White House for comment.

Speaking to reporters on Monday night, Trump said the decision to undertake the deception was made by the US military and the Secret Service, who "wanted me to go in a different flight".

The nature of the security threat remains unclear, with Trump providing no specifics, saying only that he gets "a lot of threats".

"Any consequential president has a lot of threats," he added.

The threat was related to a shoulder-mounted missile launcher, multiple US outlets reported, as well as concerns that the Iranians had knowledge of Trump's whereabouts, including what hotel floor he was staying on.

According to the New York Times, citing unnamed officials, someone had been spotted carrying a portable surface-to-air missile in the vicinity of the Nato conference in the Turkish capital.

But US media reports vary as to how seriously the Americans took the apparent threat to Trump.

One official told the Washington Post that the CIA saw the warnings as "Israeli-derived, not US-generated, and viewed [them] as low confidence".

In July, American officials who spoke to CNN said Israel had shared intelligence with the US of a specific plot by Iran to target Trump, though some suggested the Israeli report might have been an effort to sway Trump's decision-making in the war with Iran.

It is unclear what the cabinet secretaries and other officials, along with the Air Force members working on the plane, knew of the 8 July operation. Members of the press have said they were not aware that they were on a decoy flight.

Secret Service personnel often use ruses of varying levels of complexity, referring to them as "shell games" in order to keep the US president safe.

Identical versions of the president's heavily armoured limousine, for example, often switch positions in motorcades, as do helicopters transporting the president in the air.

More elaborate operations often take place during high-risk trips abroad, and in those cases reporters on Air Force One are typically briefed and asked not to report the movements in real-time.

In March 2000, for example, then-President Bill Clinton flew to the Pakistani capital of Islamabad on an unmarked executive jet that landed after a decoy jet with the livery of Air Force One.

Ahead of the trip, the White House informed USA Today reporter Susan Page - then the head of the White House Correspondent's Association - of the security arrangements.

"They told me about the extraordinary security procedures being taken because of the dangers flying there, including the use of the decoy plane," Page revealed for the first time this week.

"Of course, the dangers threatened the journalists covering the trip as well as President Clinton," she said in an interview with the Washington Post.

It is also not currently clear what, if any, danger the occupants of the plane carrying Rubio, Bessent, other staff and the White House press pool were in during the Ankara trip.

The White House Correspondent's Association has not publicly commented on the incident. But association president Jacqui Heinrich said in an internal memo to the press corps that she met with Trump administration officials on the matter.

She said she "advocated strongly for the importance of maintaining independent press coverage of the president and an accurate historical record of his movements".

Heinrich asked the White House to work with the association on a protocol for handling extraordinary security circumstances in future.