Rubio Silent on Risk to Journalists on Air Force One
The U.S. Secretary of State declined to answer whether Americans were put at risk while journalists flew on a plane reportedly under threat.
The U.S. Secretary of State declined to answer whether Americans were put at risk while journalists flew on a plane reportedly under threat.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio walked away without answering whether the administration endangered Americans by allowing journalists to fly on Air Force One while it was reportedly under threat. The question referred to the secret replacement of Donald Trump's aircraft after the NATO summit in Turkey, after which journalists traveled on an older Air Force One used as a decoy, as reported by TRT World.
According to HRT, it has been confirmed that U.S. President Donald Trump secretly left Air Force One on his return from the NATO summit in Turkey due to an assassination threat. It was revealed that two government officials remained on board. According to a CBS News report, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stayed inside the aircraft.
Trump was transferred to another military plane in a delivery vehicle, along with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, aide Natalie Harp, and two other aides. The alleged security threat, which involved a possible shoulder-fired missile attack, emerged on the last day of the NATO summit in Ankara.
Robert E. McDonald, a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of New Haven and a former Secret Service agent, highlighted the seriousness of the situation.
Moving to such an operation indicates the existence of something concrete. Something at a very high level. Something was happening, but we don't know what, and we probably never will. There is someone who knows what the threat was. Behind this story, there is certainly something that resulted in an operation of that scale. We were very close to Iran, and according to reports, Iran lost a significant portion of its air force and part of its radar system. Something was clearly detected.
The day before, on August 12, 2026, allies met in the North Atlantic Council to discuss recent drone incidents and airspace violations in Poland and Romania. They expressed support for the affected allies and reiterated that Russia bears full responsibility for the violations, NATO announced on platform X.
