On his way home from the NATO summit in Turkey this week, Trump abandoned the plane he’d spent weeks showing off and quietly climbed back aboard the old Air Force One instead.
As he departed Ankara, the $400 million Qatari gifted Boeing 747 that had carried him to the summit was sent ahead to an RAF base in England. Trump, meanwhile, boarded one of the decades-old Boeing VC-25As that have served American presidents since the Reagan administration.
That older jet then had its transponder go dark shortly after takeoff, the kind of move typically reserved for flying through active conflict zones rather than departing a routine allied summit. Asked about it, Trump gave a version of an explanation that shifted depending on who was asking, at one point saying he flew the old plane “for old time’s sake” and separately claiming the Qatari jet had simply gone ahead so troops stationed in England could “tour the Aircraft.”
Laura Ingraham wasn’t buying either version.
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“A retrofitted Air Force One will NEVER match the real thing,” she posted on X, attaching a clip of her own sit-down with retired Brig. Gen. John Teichert.
Teichert didn’t hold back on the specifics. “No matter what you do to retrofit a Qatari jet, it’s never gonna be built from scratch to have the defensive capabilities like a tailor-made Air Force One,” he told her. “And so it’s clear to me that the Secret Service gave some pretty good advice to the president that there is a real, specific, and credible threat, and he needs to have as robust and defended capability as possible, especially leaving Turkey yesterday.”
He then explained what separates the two aircraft. “You need sensors built into the plane. You need active defenses. You need hardening. All of that really can come from a tailor-made, built-from-scratch plane. We’re building two new Air Force Ones. They will have those systems, but a bolt-on system to a new Qatar jet is not gonna cut it.”
🚨 A retrofitted Air Force One will NEVER match the real thing
John Teichert: “No matter what you do to retrofit a Qatari jet, it’s never going to have the defensive capabilities of a tailor-made Air Force One built from scratch.” pic.twitter.com/beWuyhVYAa
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) July 10, 2026
This all landed in a week that already had plenty going on.
Trump had used the same NATO trip to announce his Iran ceasefire was falling apart, telling reporters bluntly: “I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore, they’re scum… they’re led by sick people, and they’re vicious, violent people. We make a deal… They go outside, talk to the press, they say ‘we never even talked about it’. There’s something wrong with them. They’re cuckoo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”
Turkey and Iran share a border, and Iran’s arsenal, including Shahed drones and Shahab ballistic missiles, has the range to reach it, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Reporters flying home on the older plane were told to keep their window shades down during takeoff.
Featured image via X screengrab
