Bill Press: Has anybody seen POTUS? Look in the dumpster!

Bill Press, Tribune Content Agency on Aug 13, 2026

Exclusive! Conversation overheard two nights ago in the White House.

Susie Wiles: Has anybody seen the president?

Natalie Harp: Nope, I haven’t seen him for an hour. Which, for me, is rare.

Marco Rubio: Have you tried the dumpster out back? He likes to hide out there sometimes. Or that porta potty by the ballroom?

Susie Wiles: No, I’ve looked everywhere. He must be playing hide-and-seek again.

OK, that never happened. But we now know that Trump played an even bigger game of hide-and-seek on July 8, when leaving the NATO summit in Turkey – a dangerous game that raises serious concerns about the safety of the president and many others. And, like everything else Trump does, it was done in a fog of lies.

Here’s how it unfolded. Trump flew to Ankara on the new Air Force One, a gift from the government of Qatar. But, upon arriving at the airport for departure, the White House announced that Trump would be flying out of Turkey, instead, on the old, legacy Air Force One. Because, Trump said, he wanted to send the Qatari jet to Mildenhall Air Force base in England so troops would have a “chance to tour the aircraft.” Lie Number One.

Trump then mounted the stairs to old Air Force One, gave the customary wave, and walked inside. Reporters and other officials on board were told to lower their window shades for take-off, ostensibly with the president still on board. Lie Number Two.

Reporters were surprised when Trump didn’t visit the press cabin during the flight. No wonder. He wasn’t on the plane! Because, once the shades were lowered so nobody could see what was happening, Trump had been secretly spirited out of Air Force One into the back of a catering truck and driven to a nearby Air Force cargo plane, or AFC-32A. Lie Number Three.

Then, once all three planes arrived at Mildenhall, Trump, who’d been stealthily returned to Air Force One, walked off the plane, waved to reporters, and walked across the tarmac to board Air Force Qatar for the flight home across the Atlantic as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Lie Number Four.

As if that’s not bad enough, details of this extraordinary event were covered up by the White House for an entire month, until it was first revealed by the Washington Post on August 10. At which point, Trump blamed it all on the Secret Service. “It’s really just up to Secret Service,” he told reporters. “I just follow what they like to do. They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane, equal safety. … I do what they say.”

Not so fast. Everybody wants the Secret Service to take whatever steps are necessary to protect the president. They were right not to let Trump fly on a plane that, according to Israeli intelligence, was targeted by Iranian terrorists with shoulder-to-air missiles. But that still leaves several unanswered questions.

First, why did Trump take Executive Assistant Natalie Harp, Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and a couple of others with him, but leave the rest of his entourage behind?

Second, if Air Force One was not safe for Trump to fly on, why was it safe for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, many senior White House officials, and the entire White House press corps – all of whom were on board the decoy plane. Or, as reporters have now dubbed it, the “Bait Plane.” Were they given any warning? Were they offered a choice? Or were their lives just considered expendable?

Third, why were no reporters, even sworn to secrecy, allowed to accompany the president? For decades, it has been established precedent that the pool goes wherever the president goes. George W. Bush kept a small group of reporters with him on September 11. Instead, Trump forced reporters to lie for a month.

Fourth. They missed all advance signs of a Hamas invasion on October 7. They were wrong when they said the Iranian regime would immediately collapse if we bombed it on February 28. So why did we believe Israeli intelligence reports about threats to Air Force One? Did US intelligence agencies confirm the danger?

I don’t normally believe in conspiracy theories, but it does make you wonder: Is that really Donald Trump up there in front of a crowd? Or is it somebody else, wearing a wig, making a fool of himself?

(Bill Press is host of The BillPressPod, and author of 10 books, including: “From the Left: My Life in the Crossfire.” His email address is: bill@billpress.com. Readers may also follow him on Twitter @billpresspod and on BlueSky @BillPress.bsky.social.)