Off the Record: Air Farce One

0:00Happy Friday, Slatesters. It is Friday, which is when we go off the record just for you, our sleepless friends and neighbors. We spend our weeks getting answers from experts on the biggest stories out there. But sometimes we just want to talk to each other about the stories we cannot get out of our brain. This is the chance for me and Mary Harris to talk about a number of things, including the President of the United States in a catering container. container. I can't say cart because my husband will come in and be like, it was not a cart. He feels... Hold it. Your husband knows it's not a cart?

0:36He feels really strongly about this. He was like, this headline says cart. That's not right. Okay. I took a two-week break from the news and I walked back into like bananas town. So... Welcome. Thank you. We've been here the whole time. Oh, boy. I want you to walk me through... We have some really good puns. operation orange shuffle the great hair escape my particular favorite is air farce one yes this is very good this is from producer ben yeah it's been richmond thank you we love that okay so the washington press broke this story that last month trump was spirited out of turkey in a catering container not cart container not cart it's big it was big you saw the picture It is big.

1:27After a threat against him and Air Force One from Iran. So to be clear, Air Force One took off full of senior staff and the White House Press Corps. So I want you to walk me through this operation because it is quite striking. What happened? okay so let's say the top we're still learning about this right details you know we are informed by our colleagues of the new york times the washington post the washington post was the first to report this now okay i'm gonna take you back in time lizzie july 8th nato summit angra we all see this weird ass truth social post from trump being like i took my beautiful new Qatari Air Force One here, but I will not be taking it back because I'm going to let it go and visit some soldiers, some serving men and women so they can enjoy the bounty of it.

2:24And for old time's sake, I'm going to take the old Air Force One, one of them, back home. Right. So we all saw that. We're like, huh, that's weird. Very quickly, New York Times begins to report, other people begin to report that actually there were security concerns. There was a reason why Donald J. Trump was not taking Qatari Air Force One raises lots of questions about this gift he got from the Qatari government. So there were already questions about what was happening with this flight. Okay. Then boom, we had this reporting from the Washington Post quickly followed up by the New York Times, which says, ha ha, there was a third plane.

3:03JK three planes. JK three planes. And what actually happened was Donald J. Trump announces he is going to take old air force one he trots up the stairs of old air force one uh while you know press senior leadership are also herded in there but then boop he like just like a magic show he gets into a catering container thank you lizzie um and is lowered into a catering truck that is on the tarmac it's like a scissor lift exactly and driven to a different plane a c-32a a military variant of the Boeing 757 passenger jet, which is sitting there, which it's stated purpose if you were, you know, really keeping track of who was where, whatever.

3:48Pete Hegseth was the guy who like trotted up the stairs like, oh, this is the special Pete Hegseth plane. Ha ha. It was not. It was the special Donald J. Trump plane. And we should add, he brought some of his very close friends, not Marco Rubio, to be clear. Or the White House Press Corps. Or the White House Press One, Air Force, old Air Force One, because again, new Air Force One was sent off to a military base. He brought with him, for instance, this woman who's become known as Donald Trump's printer because she like prints off Natalie Harp, I believe is her name. And she she prints off his true socials and like presents them to him, stuff he wants to look at, presents it to him.

4:35She like has a printer that she carries around with her. she's a very controversial person because she lives leaves like little notes for him around the residence and that has alarmed some people her own brother who's like distant from her has been like i think there's a problem she seems quite close to trump she's a little she's very close no one knows what's happening there but she she made it onto the donald trump plane but meanwhile everyone else is on air force one la-di-da thinking donald trump is there when the plane lands. In fact, Donald Trump is brought from the other plane back to Air Force One and de-planes from there as if he had never left.

5:10So that's what happened. Yeah, real wild, real wild. And it's wild, too, because when the first reports came out about the switched planes and it being for security reasons, that caused a huge kerfuffle, right? Like those reporters, I believe they were subpoenaed. And so but now this reporting comes out and then that got quite right. It went away. But like but still, it's like there's a lot of alarm about that. But now it's like we see that wasn't even the half of it. That's it for now. And if you want to hear the rest of this episode, the way to do it is to subscribe to Slate Plus. Unlock Slate Plus now by going to Slate dot com forward slash what next plus.