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After the NATO summit in Turkey last month, Donald Trump pulled up in a limo, climbed the stairs to the blue-liveried door of Air Force One, then turned and waved. The plane took off from Ankara 20 minutes later, ferrying the president, his entourage, and the journalists who had covered his trip.

Or so it seemed. In truth, as the Washington Post revealed last night, the White House had pulled a switcheroo. A surreptitious airport catering truck secretly shuttled Trump to a waiting military plane, which flew him out instead. By itself, the story is a bizarre chapter in presidential history. But the context of the bait and switch—including the assassination threat that preceded it, an evident comfort with deceiving and potentially endangering members of his own administration and the press, and even controversy surrounding Air Force One itself—also marries a few themes of Trump’s second term so far.

This sounds like something out of a spy movie. Tell me more! 

Here’s what we know. The catering truck, which typically loads in-flight meals, parked on the right side of Air Force One, partially shielded from media cameras. According to the Post, Trump crossed to the other side of the presidential plane after boarding and stepped into the truck’s elevated container. Video shows a suited man climbing into the vehicle’s cab, the container lowering, and the truck pulling away. It then sidles up to a smaller U.S. government jet and elevates its container once again, presumably letting Trump board unnoticed. The smaller plane then flew to the U.K., where Trump stopped en route to Washington, under a nondescript call sign. To help conceal the plot, which one anonymous U.S. official called a “deception operation,” White House officials made journalists aboard Air Force One close their window shades. Once in Britain, according to the New York Times, Trump was covertly ferried back to Air Force One as though he had been aboard the whole time.

That’s pretty elaborate! But........

© Slate