On July 8, after a Nato summit in Turkey, the assembled press arrived to board Air Force One (the original plane, not the Qatari-gifted replacement that has both anti-corruption and security watchdogs aghast) only to see Trump already boarding the plane—and a couple of unaccustomed catering vehicles backed up to the presidential transport. “I have never seen that before,” says AP White House photographer Alex Brandon in the trailer for Instradocs: The Decoy Plane. The veteran photographer, his “spidey-sense” for out-of-place detail leading the way, notes, “I shot it. I shot the shit out of it.”
The resulting, bumbling security op, which saw Secret Service nonchalantly order press on the plane to lower their window shades at the same time, was indeed a decoy, as Trump, hiding in one of those catering vehicles, was ferried to a more nondescript military plane because of supposed Iranian threats to blow up Air Force One. You know, the plane where he’d just left the White House press pool and various cabinet figures, reportedly including an equally clueless Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to potentially die in his place. According to reports, Trump then pulled the same catering cart switcheroo upon reaching the friendlier skies of England, popping back into Air Force One like a particularly cumbersome magic trick where he was the only safe one.
Instadocs: The Decoy Plane lands on Netflix on September 4.
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