Netflix announced Tuesday that it will release a documentary on President Donald Trump’s secret plane swap in Turkey, premiering the film Friday.
The streaming service posted a trailer for “Instadocs: The Decoy Plane,” the third installment of its quick-turn documentary series. Netflix said the film covers the July incident through the eyes of the reporters traveling with the president.
Netflix wrote that Trump “slipped off Air Force One in a catering truck and secretly boarded a different aircraft,” leaving the press to fly on without knowing he was gone.
Associated Press chief White House photographer Alex Brandon described the scene on the tarmac in Ankara.
“I see those catering vehicles up against the side of Air Force One. There’s one at the front and one at the back. And I have never seen that before,” Brandon said. “I shot it. I shot the s**t out of it.”
Reuters White House correspondent Gram Slattery said staff told the reporters on board to lower their window shades. Brandon said he was told the Secret Service had ordered it.
Netflix said the film also features Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Carol Leonnig of MS NOW, Washington Post reporter Dan Lamothe, former Secret Service agent Robert McDonald, and former Air Force One crew member Wanda Joell.
The Post first reported the operation on Aug. 10. Netflix announced the documentary three weeks later. Executive producer Josh Tyrangiel said the series is built for that pace.
“With Netflix, we have the infrastructure to match the speed of the world we’re documenting,” Tyrangiel said.
Trump boarded the legacy Air Force One in front of cameras at Ankara on July 8 and was moved by catering truck to an Air Force C-32A that flew to RAF Mildenhall in England. Reporters and some White House staff stayed on the larger jet.
CNN commentator David Axelrod said the arrangement was hard for him to understand.
“It was kind of stunning to think that all those on the plane were essentially a decoy,” Axelrod said.
Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews last month that the Secret Service made the call.
“Well, it’s only up to Secret Service. I just follow what they’d like to do, so I go by Secret Service and the military,” he said. “They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane-equal safety-but they wanted me to do it, so I do it. I do what they say.”
Read the full article here