Donald Trump flew from Turkey to England onboard the older Air Force One on Wednesday, rather than the new, Qatari-gifted aircraft he used to travel to the Nato summit in Ankara, an unexpected change in plans that prompted questions about security fears.<\/p>\n
Trump later boarded the new plane at Mildenhall air force base in the United Kingdom for the trip back to Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just landed and met up with our new Air Force One, which was sent earlier to RAF Mildenhall, so we could show the wonderful Servicemembers, as per the entire Base\u2019s request,\u201d Trump posted<\/a> on Truth Social on Wednesday evening, along with a photo of servicemembers in front of the new plane. \u201cThey were very excited, picture enclosed. It was on our way back to the States from Turkey, with virtually no deviation of flightpath.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump first announced the change in a Truth Social<\/a> post on Wednesday, where he said that \u201cto honor our brave men and women of the Military, we are sending the brand new, and truly spectacular, Air Force One to Mildenhall Air Force Base, in the United Kingdom, to give them a chance to tour the Aircraft\u201d.<\/p>\n He added that \u201cfor old time\u2019s sake, we\u2019ll be taking the former Air Force One, from Turkey<\/a> to Mildenhall, a short trip that is totally worth doing in order to give our Great Military Heroes a chance to appreciate our beautiful new addition to the Air Force Fleet!\u201d<\/p>\n Trump had flown to Turkey onboard the new $400m aircraft, which was given to the US as a gift last year by the Qatari government, marking its first international trip<\/a>. So the shift in plans to fly the older jet drew questions during a news conference at the Nato summit in Ankara, Turkey, where Trump was asked why he was not returning onboard the new plane.<\/p>\n One reporter asked the president to \u201caddress speculation that you\u2019re leaving Ankara not in the new Air Force One because of security concerns involving Iran\u201d, noting that: \u201cYou\u2019ve spoken today twice about them possibly assassinating you and possibly being successful.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump did not address the part about the aircraft, but on the possible Iranian assassination attempts, he said: \u201cI speak about it a lot because the life of a president is very dangerous.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m No 1 on the kill list for Iran,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Shortly after, another reporter asked: \u201cBut why aren\u2019t you flying the new plane?\u201d to which Trump responded: \u201cIt\u2019s flying to Europe<\/a> to one of the big bases, two or three of the big bases, where we can show it to the people, and we\u2019ll be going home by normal methods, but we have it going to Europe, to a couple of bases, actually one in particular, but it\u2019s going to go to a couple of bases so the soldiers can see it because it\u2019s truly magnificent.\u201d<\/p>\n The Trump administration drew criticism last year when it confirmed<\/a> that it had accepted the gift of a Boeing 747 jetliner from Qatar<\/a>, with lawmakers voicing concerns about security<\/a> and conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n The itinerary change came as Trump, when discussing Iran, told reporters on Wednesday that \u201cthey want to take out the US leader, me, I\u2019m on every list\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m on every single one of their lists, and so far I guess I\u2019ve been a little bit lucky, but that maybe doesn\u2019t last very long, because that\u2019s the way it goes,\u201d Trump added<\/a>.<\/p>\n The plane switch also came as Trump declared<\/a> that the ceasefire with Iran was over as he arrived at the Nato summit in Turkey and, as this week, the US launched strikes on more than 80 Iranian targets, according to the US Central Command,<\/a> and imposed sanctions on Iranian oil sales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump flew from Turkey to England onboard the older Air Force One on Wednesday, rather than the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-681231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}