Zelenskyy STRIKES BACK HARD at Trump BEFORE MEETING

President Donald Trump's use of a decoy plane in Turkey and escape via a catering truck, with journalists none the wiser, was detailed in a new analysis for Slate by Ian Prasad Philbrick.

The plan, intended to avert an assassination threat, was basically "something out of a spy movie," Philbrick wrote.

"The catering truck, which typically loads in-flight meals, parked on the right side of Air Force One, partially shielded from media cameras," he wrote. As part of the ruse, Trump "crossed to the other side of the presidential plane after boarding and stepped into the truck’s elevated container," after which the catering truck lowered the container, drove to a military jet, and offloaded its human cargo to be routed home through the United Kingdom — without journalists or even some White House officials any the wiser.

One of the most shocking aspects of the whole affair, wrote Philbrick, is that the Trump administration was essentially using all the journalists who thought they were flying with the president "as bait" for any would-be assassination plot without letting them know.

Furthermore, he noted, after the flight, "asked why reporters had had to close their window shades when leaving Turkey, Trump failed to mention that he had switched flights. 'I’m No. 1 on their list,' he said, referring to Iran. 'But if I go, you go. Right?' As it turns out, maybe not."

Decoy flights are not completely unheard of for the president, Philbrick wrote — but it's still extremely uncommon.

"Officials were vague about George W. Bush’s whereabouts immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, and Bill Clinton took an unmarked plane from India to Pakistan in 2000," wrote Philbrick. However, in these cases, "even Bush had reporters with him, and Clinton’s staff told at least one journalist about the switch beforehand."

Philbrick also took the ruse as a sign that Trump's war against Iran is not going well.

"In short, lasting peace seems further away than ever," he wrote.

President Donald Trump left his cabinet secretaries and top advisers on a plane threatened by Iran while he moved to safety, The New York Times reported.

Air Force One was targeted by Iran as he left a NATO summit in Turkey, but reports are surfacing that Trump switched planes by hiding in a catering cart. However, the latest reporting by The Times reveals Trump also ditched Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and traveling press, who were "kept in the dark."

Two anonymous officials told Times reporter Maggie Haberman that Stephen Miller, Trump's top domestic policy adviser, and Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, were also left on the threatened decoy plane. Trump meanwhile left Ankara, Turkey, aboard a C-32A military jet.

According to Haberman's reporting, Rubio knew about the threat from Iran and that he was traveling on a plane that had been targeted for an attack. However, it's unclear if other top White House officials knew about the threat too.

The anonymous officials who spoke with Haberman said that at least some of the White House staff who also left on the endangered plane were unaware of the threat.

A White House spokesman didn't respond to a request from The Times for comment about the discussion to decide who would be left on the threatened plane and who would be whisked to safety with Trump.

The New York Times's reporting did, however, include a comment from Andrew Marlowe, the Hollywood screenwriter of the 1997 Harrison Ford thriller "Air Force One."

Marlowe told The Times that even though the Secret Service was trying to keep Trump safe, the optics of the reporting that has been coming out don't make him look good.

"Now real life isn't a movie, but given the circumstances, I'm not sure I could ever script a moment like that for a heroic main character," Marlowe said. "If the threat were that great, it's hard to imagine the audience rooting for any character who would trade his own safety by treating the remaining civilians onboard as potential sacrificial lambs, especially without their informed consent."