Times Reports Secret Service Urged Trump Not to Fly the Qatari-Gifted Air Force One

On July 8, 2026, The New York Times reported, citing anonymous sources, that the Secret Service urged President Trump to depart the NATO summit in Turkey aboard an older Air Force One rather than the Boeing 747 donated by Qatar, because of security concerns. In a follow-up the next day, the Times reported that the gifted aircraft lacked defensive countermeasures present on the older plane, including advanced antimissile capabilities. The Qatari jet, accepted by the United States in 2025 and delivered to Joint Base Andrews in June 2026, has been the subject of ethics and national-security objections since it was offered.

The reporting bears on whether a foreign government's gift, accepted over those objections, has been converted into a presidential aircraft that meets the security standards of the fleet it replaced. It is also the reporting that the Justice Department is now investigating: federal agents served grand jury subpoenas on the article's four bylined reporters two days later.

The administration has not publicly confirmed the Secret Service's advice or the countermeasures gap. The claims rest on anonymous sourcing, though the subsequent leak investigation is consistent with the underlying information having come from inside the government.