WHCA Demands New Protocols After Trump Decoy Plane Ruse

The White House Correspondents’ Association met with senior administration officials on Tuesday to demand a new protocol for handling extraordinary security circumstances. The request follows reports that President Donald Trump used a decoy plane to evade an assassination threat from Iran during a NATO Summit in Turkey on July 8.

During the operation, the press pool and some staff remained on the decoy aircraft while Trump covertly departed via a catering truck to board a separate military plane. WHCA President Jacqui Heinrich argued that using journalists as unwitting decoys undermines confidence in independent reporting and threatens the integrity of the historical record.

While Heinrich acknowledged the responsibility of the Secret Service to protect the president, she advocated for a mechanism to correct the record following such security operations. White House communications director Steven Cheung has not yet commented on the meeting.