Former secret service agent on ruse to smuggle Trump out of Turkey

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:16)
WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

**Paul Eckloff** (0:22)
My primary concern here is what presents a bigger threat moving forward? The president successfully leaving a war zone or releasing that trade craft to the public and endangering every operation moving forward.

**Kalyani Saxena** (0:38)
The president starred in his own covert operation last month when he was reportedly smuggled onto a secret flight to dodge an assassination threat.
It's Tuesday, August 11th, and this is Here & Now Anytime from NPR and WBUR Boston. I'm Kalyani Saxena. Today on the show, we'll hear about some major changes the Trump administration is making to its childhood vaccine recommendations.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:14)
Effective immediately, my administration is recognizing gold standard childhood vaccine recommendations for only 11 core vaccinations against the most serious and dangerous diseases, along with the MMR, which hopefully will be split up.

**Kalyani Saxena** (1:29)
Also, people who lost everything in the Spokane, Washington wildfires are stocking up a makeshift general store for firefighters working on the ground. We speak with a deputy fire chief from Southern California who is helping with the emergency response there.

**Tom Clemo** (1:45)
The community is providing to us and it's an amazing demonstration of hope.

**Kalyani Saxena** (1:54)
But first, President Donald Trump left a NATO summit in Turkey last month via a catering truck. No, that's not the plot of a new spy novel. The Washington Post reports that's actually what happened after the president became the subject of an Iranian assassination threat. As of this taping, NPR had not yet independently confirmed the story. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut says he wants an investigation into what the Secret Service did, calling the incident, quote, downright scary. Here's what we know from the Washington Post. The administration said that Trump left Turkey on July 8th on board Air Force One using the original Air Force One and not the plane gifted to him by Qatar.
Already on the plane were media and some White House staff. Trump boarded the plane in front of TV cameras. Then he was smuggled out in an airport catering truck and onto a smaller plane that flew him to Britain.
So for hours basically, the American public and many officials had no idea where the president really was.
Lots to unpack there. Thankfully, we've got Paul Eckloff on deck. He frequently traveled with Presidents Obama and Trump as a supervisor of the Presidential Protective Division of the Secret Service. And he spoke with Scott Tong about this operation.

**Scott Tong** (3:19)
The Washington Post initially reported on this elaborate deception that the president boarded the old Air Force One.
And that turned out to be a decoy because the Post sources say he stepped off the plane then onto a catering truck, which took him to a different plane. This was because of what the Post calls an Iranian assassination threat. What do you make of this apparent misdirection? Are you surprised?

**Paul Eckloff** (3:43)
I'm not surprised. And my first response would be, why is this being leaked publicly? What are the motivations of somebody who would reveal this sort of tradecraft?
I wouldn't say it's an elaborate ruse. This is the most basic of ruses, a basic shell game of, you don't know which limo the president is in. You don't necessarily know what elevator, what room in a building he's in. His schedule is often very, very public. His specific movements, especially in and out of war zones, has historically been clandestine.

**Scott Tong** (4:16)
Which I want to ask you about, Paul. But first of all, if you were still in your old Secret Service job, would you have been in the middle of this, assessing the threat, figuring out the best way to protect the president?

**Paul Eckloff** (4:27)
Yes, I would have been on the EA team, as we call it, the Emergency Action Team, that would have made this decision. When you consider that Turkey sits in the center of two current wars, its southern border is Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and its northern border is the Black Sea with the Russian Black Sea Fleet and just to the north of that, Ukraine.
We have to understand that a NATO summit in the middle of two war zones would necessitate very creative thinking.

**Scott Tong** (4:53)
Now, as that was happening, reportedly, on board Air Force One were White House staffers, journalists, who had been told the president was on board. So in this kind of decoy moment, did that put them in harm's way?