MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
For more on this, we're going to turn to someone with deep experience in this field. That's Bobby McDonald. He spent more than 20 years with the Secret Service, where he often led teams focused on protecting top officials and high-profile international events. He's now a professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. Good morning. Thanks so much for joining us.
BOBBY MCDONALD: Good morning, Michel. Great to be with you.
MARTIN: So President Trump has now confirmed that the Secret Service asked him to switch planes. As a professional in this field, what did you think when you heard of this maneuver?
MCDONALD: Yeah. I think there's a couple of pieces of the puzzle that were missing here. I think that obviously there was some intelligence that was gathered on the ground while the folks were in Turkey. A meeting of the minds of the White House staff, the military office at the White House and the Secret Service got together and came up with this plan to do a little deception.
There are these types of things that are done on a much smaller scale on a regular basis. You know from your time at the White House that many times motorcade alignments for movements are moved around and cars are in different positions to give a little deception. This is one of the highest types of operations that I've ever seen. President Clinton, President Bush 43, had some deception movements done for some foreign travel in the past, based upon intelligence, but this was definitely a big one.
MARTIN: So do any ethical considerations come into play when planning a maneuver like this one? I understand that you think that this may have been kind of an improvised move - right? - because of - given the circumstances that they felt that they had on the ground. But I am curious about sort of the ethical considerations here. I mean, the people on the plane were government personnel, Secret Service agents.
They signed up for the job of potentially putting their lives in harm's way, if need be, but the journalists perhaps, you know, did not, or if they think that they're going to be in proximity to the president in the pool, they could choose not to be in the pool. So I'm just wondering about this. Did that ever come up when you're planning these kinds of events?
MCDONALD: Yeah. I think, in this instance, Michel, that those two other planes, the 747s, if you will, that are being referred to as decoys - I'm willing to bet that they had a lot of assets that were provided by the U.S. Air Force and our allies in the air and on the ground as they were moving. So I think the premise that those two planes were left out on their own, I think, is a little bit reaching.
And I think that those other folks that were involved in these decisions had to have made that decision to make sure that there was protection provided by them, either by the U.S. military or our friends in that region.
MARTIN: But you don't know that for a fact.
MCDONALD: I do not know that for a fact, but I would find it hard to believe that two Air Force 747s would be left to fend for themselves without some support from our allies and from our Air Force.
MARTIN: Let me play something else that the president said. This is what he said last month before leaving the NATO summit for the flight home.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: There was another list - came out yesterday - and I'm No. 1 on. I like being No. 1 on TikTok better. But I'm No. 1 on the list for killing.
MARTIN: So what about that? I mean, the fact is during your time, you know, in the Secret Service, the fact is the United States - the president was often a target of - and other top officials were often sort of targets, but were there certain special circumstances here that you think led the Secret Service to want to make this particular maneuver at that particular time?
MCDONALD: Yeah. Great question, Michel. I think that the fact that we were in the region in and around Iran, in Turkey at the time, that Iran had some abilities to put some forceful tactics together to potentially attack those planes and attack the president were put into the mix here. And those type of decisions based upon a threat level now that is very high.
We have a very high threat level back here domestically. We have a high threat level internationally. Look at the last two and almost 2 1/2 years, and the attempts that we know about that have been directed at the president. You know, the one thing the Secret Service doesn't have the luxury to do is to be able to have a metric for the assassination attempts that may not have been noticed or may not have come to fruition based upon people seeing enough police around a venue.
So there's a lot of different factors here that go into that decision. I have to believe that those decisions were not made lightly, and that a lot of discussions with leaders of our country in Turkey at the time were held probably around the clock to make this decision and hopefully make it as being the right one.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, though, as our colleague Tam Keith noted, the journalists covering the White House are there to provide an independent record of the president's activities. The two instances that we know about where specific decoy maneuvers were made, the press was kept informed, at least a small group of them were. Is that customary in your planning, or is this - in this event, where no one in the press corps was told about this, is that customary, or is that unusual?
MCDONALD: Yeah. I think there's two factors there, Michel. I think, one, we have a lot different communication abilities now that we didn't have 20 years ago. And number two, I think that's going to be one of those hard questions for you and your colleagues to be asking the White House staff in the White House briefing to see what...
MARTIN: OK.
MCDONALD: ...Their take is on that and how that will move forward.
MARTIN: All right. That's former Secret Service agent Bobby McDonald. He led a number of teams that covered high-profile events. Thanks so much for joining us.
MCDONALD: Thank you, Michel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
