Trump Pulls A Ghosn, Sneaks Off Air Force One In Airport Catering Truck

Hey, remember that time Trump couldn't safely fly on the definitely-not-a-bribe plane Qatar gave him and instead had to fly on the old Air Force One because the gift plane didn't have the necessary defense systems installed? Good times. Turns out, the real story is at least a hundred times funnier (and far darker) than what was originally reported. According to the Washington Post, Trump was so afraid Iran would assassinate him, he pulled a Carlos Ghosn and snuck off the old Air Force One. This time, though, instead of a speaker case, he reportedly used a catering truck.

Whether the supposed assassination threat was real or not, WaPo reports that Trump didn't actually leave Turkey on Air Force One like we previously thought. Instead, he flew home on an Air Force C-32A — a military variant of the Boeing 757 — after pulling "an elaborate ruse" that feels like it was yanked right out of an '80s buddy comedy. Trump got on the plane in full view of the cameras, then reportedly crawled right out the back of the plane into "an airport catering truck typically used to load meals and other supplies preflight," which shuttled him to the C-32. 

The New York Times also independently reported the same story, and when contacted for a comment, the White House didn't deny the reports. Instead, communications director Steven Cheung told WaPo the Qatari not-a-bribe plane is totally safe, saying, "The new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the President and his staff. As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats."

Of course, if the Iranian assassination threat was real, the reporting is accurate, and Trump really did need to sneak onto a tiny catering truck in order to make it out of Turkey safely on a different plane, that does mean he left many White House staffers and members of the press corps to potentially die on a decoy plane. So that's not ideal. You'd also think Cheung would have been been more concerned with reminding WaPo how safe the old Air Force One still is, you know, since that's the plane Trump left people to die on. 

Then again, Trump, his staff, and the journalists on the plane never would have been in that position if Republicans hadn't needlessly started a new forever war with Iran in the first place. And there's no getting around the fact that the U.S. has already lost the war. The Wall Street Journal reports that Gulf states have accepted that Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz "will become permanent, disrupting their oil and gas exports and global energy supplies indefinitely," an outcome that had previously been considered unthinkable. Iran will now be the Ticketmaster of oil in a strait it didn't control before Republicans got their dream war, and the "fee" of at least 5% that it plans to charge ships traversing the strait could generate hundreds of millions of dollars every day or more than $100 billion a year. 

Alternative routes may cut into Iran's oil revenue, but that's still a whole lot of money to hand a violent, oppressive regime now run by younger, more hardline leaders. Gulf states now reportedly believe it's their only option. As Umer Karim, an Arab Gulf security researcher at the University of Birmingham, told the WSJ, "In this background the Arab Gulf states cannot really ensure complete safety and openness of the Strait of Hormuz and can no longer rely upon it for transport or trade. Thus there is no other option for now but to concede to a degree to Iranian demands."

That's probably bad news if you were hoping gas would get cheap again, but have you considered being an oil company instead of a person? The U.S. may have just recorded the hottest July on record, but don't worry, this war with Iran also made sure last quarter's oil and gas profits set new records, as well.