{"id":8937,"date":"2026-08-12T06:37:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T06:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=8937"},"modified":"2026-08-12T06:37:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T06:37:15","slug":"democrats-demand-briefing-on-trumps-secret-flight-from-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=8937","title":{"rendered":"Democrats demand briefing on Trump\u2019s secret flight from Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the White House kept Congress \u201cin the dark\u201d about last month\u2019s ruse to avoid an Iranian threat.<\/strong><\/p>

Read more Trump officials tout Medicaid financing changes ahead of midterms<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
A statement from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) revealed that the White House concealed the operation at least from Democratic members of Congress. (Anna Moneymaker\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) on Tuesday demanded that the White House immediately brief Congress on the secret flight that President Donald Trump took out of Turkey last month, a day after The Washington Post first reported <\/a>that an Iranian assassination threat prompted the White House to conduct an elaborate ruse to conceal the president\u2019s travel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is unacceptable that Congress was kept in the dark and instead learned about this serious threat through press reports,\u201d Schumer wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump has put America\u2019s sons and daughters in harm\u2019s way by getting into an unnecessary and reckless war, and this administration has repeatedly refused to provide Congress and the public with the transparency they deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

On July 8, Trump flew secretly from Turkey on an alternate military aircraft while the White House said he was aboard the old Air Force One. After boarding the old Air Force One in view of cameras, Trump was secretly shuttled to an Air Force C-32A in a catering truck, without the knowledge of media and some White House staff aboard the plane.<\/p>\n

The senator\u2019s statement reveals that the White House concealed the operation at least from Democratic members of Congress. In addition to Schumer, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, also was not briefed on the assassination threat and subsequent ruse, according to a spokesperson for his office. Both are members of the \u201cGang of Eight,\u201d the group of leaders from both parties and both houses of Congress who traditionally receive top-secret briefings from the executive branch on intelligence and sensitive covert operations.<\/p>\n

Representatives for Republican congressional leaders, including Sen. John Thune of South Dakota and House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, did not respond to requests for comment about whether they were aware of the operation.<\/p>\n

The extraordinary episode has raised questions about the measures the administration took to conceal the president\u2019s location from the public and other parts of the U.S. government for hours.<\/p>

Read more Pentagon report reveals steep civilian toll of Trump\u2019s Yemen campaign<\/a><\/p>\n

No law requires the White House to inform Congress of the president\u2019s whereabouts, but past administrations have made extensive efforts to keep the public and lawmakers informed. When presidents have engaged in secretive missions in the past, they have typically briefed some members of the media<\/a> and permitted them to share details of the operations with the public once the president was out of danger.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven now, weeks after the fact, the White House is not being forthright with the American people about where the president was, how he traveled and why,\u201d said Ned Price, who served in the Biden administration as deputy to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and as a senior adviser and spokesperson in the State Department. \u201cThey\u2019re continuing to lie to the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump, press secretary Karoline Leavitt and other top administration officials have not publicly addressed the mission since The Post published its report.<\/p>\n

As he traveled to Ohio on Tuesday afternoon to watch a high school athletic competition called the \u201cPatriot Games,\u201d Trump boarded his new, Qatari-supplied Air Force One without speaking to reporters.<\/p>\n

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President Donald Trump disembarks Air Force One in Cleveland on Tuesday. (Kylie Cooper\/Reuters)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) also called for a briefing, saying Monday night on CNN that the revelations of the flight were \u201cdownright scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Secret Service should be credited with an evasive maneuver or, as they call it, a deceptive operation, to keep the President safe,\u201d Blumenthal said. \u201cBut remember that there continued to be reporters and staff and military on the legacy Air Force One, which then flew without the President, and I\u2019d like to know what was done to keep them safe.\u201d<\/p>

Read more Trump administration to end Medicaid funding for children\u2019s transgender care<\/a><\/p>\n

Theodoric Meyer contributed to this article.<\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the White House kept Congress \u201cin the dark\u201d about last month\u2019s ruse to avoid an Iranian threat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nDemocrats demand briefing on Trump\u2019s secret flight from Turkey - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=8937\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Democrats demand briefing on Trump\u2019s secret flight from Turkey - 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