The President, His Plane and the Press

Narrator/Announcer

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Michael Barbaro

I was out for some drinks, sitting on a patio.

Tyler Pager

My wife and I were over at some friend's house for dinner. You know, having a really nice evening, a glass of wine and all that. My family and I had sat down to watch Sheep Detectives Murder Mystery. And right as we were about to find out from the sheep who had

Michael Barbaro

committed the murder, I get a call from the New York Times. I'm Michael Balbaro. This is the Daily, and I pick

Tyler Pager

it up, and it's an FBI agent who identifies himself and says, I'm in front of your house right now. Are you coming home anytime soon?

Michael Barbaro

When I got home, my wife was in the front yard with our kids, and they were playing with some sparklers left over from the July 4th celebration. And she pointed to this unusual car sitting there across the street from our house. Inside were two FBI agents that were effectively staking us out.

Tyler Pager

My son is at the front of the house looking through the window, and

Michael Barbaro

he shouts, they're here. Last Friday night, as my colleagues from the Washington bureau of the Times settled into their weekend routines, FBI agents showed up at their homes.

Tyler Pager

And the agent identifies himself, and he basically says, I'm serving you with this

Michael Barbaro

subpoena, and summoned them to testify before a grand jury. It was two sheets of paper. I mean, it wasn't even the official signed document. It was a photocopy of the subpoena.

Tyler Pager

The agents wouldn't say what the concern was, but I had no doubt what

Michael Barbaro

story they were talking about. They were talking about the Air Force One story. It was an extraordinary move by the Trump administration in response to a set of stories published by the Times about the safety of the new Air Force One.

Tyler Pager

It was a fairly ordinary interaction, except for the fact that this is not

Michael Barbaro

something that is supposed to happen with reporters. Today we talk to one of the reporters behind those stories, White House correspondent Tyler pager. It's Friday, July 17th. Tyler, thank you for making time for us.

Tyler Pager

Thanks so much, Michael. Glad to be here.

Michael Barbaro

So tell us about the reporting that you and our colleagues did that sparked this unexpected and very unusual response from the Trump administration. These subpoenas that the FBI has delivered to our colleagues.

Tyler Pager

Yeah. So to set the scene, Michael, the President is traveling to Turkey for the annual NATO summit. And he's doing so in his new Air Force One, the one that's been donated by Qatar. And it's the first time he's taking the plane overseas.

Donald Trump

Well, thank you very much. And before we begin on the plane,

Tyler Pager

he had just debuted the plane earlier this month around the July 4, 250th birthday celebrations. He flew it to Mount Rushmore.

Donald Trump

The other plane was about 35 years old, and it was time. And President of the United.

Tyler Pager

The President had complained for years that it was embarrassing for him to show up at international summits on the old plane, feeling that it didn't reflect American greatness and American innovation. And the President loves this new plane. It's been a fixation of his to get rid of the dated Air Force One and debut this glittering jumbo jet that has been gifted to him by the country of Qatar.

Donald Trump

And I went to Boeing, I said, who has the best one? They said, Qatar. There's never been a plane like it. Frankly, we could.

Michael Barbaro

And which he's put a lot of taxpayer money into.

Tyler Pager

Correct. So the Qatari government gives the President the plane, and then they spend months and hundreds of millions of dollars retrofitting it. Because, of course, Air Force One is not any normal plane. It is carrying the American President. And there are a lot of modifications that need to be made to, to ensure that it's safe and has all the capabilities that the President may need at any given time. And the President is very excited about this plane and is eager to show it off, as are his aides that are traveling on it. They're posting photos and videos from inside the plane of the gold encrusted walls and the big staircases and the plush seats and, and this geometric carpets. And so there's just a lot of excitement from the President and his team that this plane is ready and that he's able to take it on an overseas trip.

Michael Barbaro

So here he is arriving in Turkey for a summit with fellow presidents and leaders in a plane that finally, in his mind, befits the leader of the United States.

Tyler Pager

Exactly. So the President arrives in Turkey and I'm on the ground in Ankara covering the NATO summit. And when he gets off the plane, he's the only world leader greeted by President Erdogan. And he receives this over the top welcome ceremony that includes horses and the Star Spangled Banner played by a band and fighter jets. And it's a ceremony that is most comparable to the one the Pope received when he visited Turkey.

Michael Barbaro

Wow.

Tyler Pager

Last year.

Michael Barbaro

Gets off a plane he thinks finally is worthy of the us, walks into a ceremony worthy of the President.

Tyler Pager

And then there's just a torrent of news

Advertisement Voice

overnight, a new round of US attacks on Iran.

Tyler Pager

There's the resumption of hostilities between the US and Iran, which had been somewhat dormant because of the ceasefire and the ongoing negotiations.

Donald Trump

They want to make a deal, but they don't know how to make a deal. And then they go around shooting ships at night.

Tyler Pager

So the US and Iran are trading strikes again.

Donald Trump

We can play games, but I'm not sure I want to make a deal. I just finished the job.

Tyler Pager

And the President jumps into unleashing criticisms on the NATO allies, reviving criticisms he's had for some time, that NATO allies didn't do enough to support the US in its war against Iran, that countries are not meeting their defense spending requirements.

Donald Trump

We pay far, far too much. Billion and billions of dollars too much. Because it's unfair. Because we're protecting them. So we protect them, but they're not there for us. Think of it. Doesn't work.

Tyler Pager

And so there's just so much going on that the plane was sort of the story of the week before because that's when it debuted domestically. And so there wasn't a whole lot of attention on the plane at that point because there was just so much else going on at the summit.

Donald Trump

There was.

Michael Barbaro

And with Iran, when does that start to change?

Tyler Pager

So that changes the next day when the President is scheduled to leave Turkey and return back to the United States. It was a very short trip. What the President announces on Truth Social is that the new Air Force One, the Qatari donated jet, is going to be flown from Turkey to England to an Air Force base so that troops can get an opportunity to see it.

Michael Barbaro

Interesting.

Tyler Pager

The President says he will be taking the old Air Force One, which is in Turkey. Not surprisingly, when the President travels overseas, they often have multiple planes and backup planes and other sorts of aircraft to transport all the stuff the President needs when he's overseas. And what the President says is that he'll be taking the old Air Force One, quote, for old times sake.

Michael Barbaro

Which is an unexpected explanation for a President who, as you just said, Tyler, is pretty openly obsessed with the superiority of this new plane compared to the old one.

Tyler Pager

Exactly. It's surprising. And immediately there are questions about why there's this sudden last minute change. Presidential trips are choreographed to the minute and everything is done far in advance, way before The President even departs the United States. There are advance teams that scout out locations and departures, and every piece of the President's trip is highly scheduled. So it's a surprise to see a change made so soon to his departure. And people immediately start to ask questions about security. And so, Michael, remember, we are in Ankara, which is roughly a thousand miles away from Tehran, and the war has started up again. And so there are questions about whether there are threats or risks to the President at a time when the US Is launching more strikes against Iran and he's in the region.

Michael Barbaro

Right. This seems like the closest the President has been to Iran, perhaps since the war began.

Tyler Pager

Absolutely. And also, it's important to point out that there have been questions about security apparatus on this plane. For months. Lawmakers and former military officials had been warning that they were concerned that the plane was made available to the President too soon. That is, the amount of work to retrofit a plane to make it safe for the President to fly on as Air Force One requires a lot more time than the months it took from when the President acquired the Qatari jet and when he flew on it for the first time.

Michael Barbaro

And what are the systems aboard Air Force One that folks had feared would have been difficult to import to this Qatari donated plane that the President is now using in this pretty compressed timescale that he got it in?

Tyler Pager

So broadly, there are concerns that there were not the same defensive countermeasures, including advanced anti missile capabilities, installed on this plane. People told us that there just wasn't the time to put all of those critical systems on the plane to ensure the President had the full scope of capabilities to protect the plane from any sort of issue or threat.

Michael Barbaro

And I guess it's worth saying that Air Force One, the official old Air Force One, was specifically built for the purposes of protecting the American President, whereas this Qatari plane was originally constructed to carry lots of people in luxury and gets retrofitted to be secure. But inevitably, it's probably quite hard to put some of those very specific countermeasure technologies onto a plane that wasn't designed for them.

Tyler Pager

Right, Michael? In fact, if you compare photos of the old Air Force One and the new Air Force One, you can see on the old plane under its wing, on its tail, aspects of defensive systems that you can't see on the new plane.

Michael Barbaro

So as you start to have questions about why the President's plans have changed and whether it's related to security concerns about this plane, what do you do next?

Tyler Pager

Remember, I'm still in Turkey reporting on the NATO summit. And I'm trying to figure out what's going on with this plane. But I happen to be sitting in a cavernous auditorium with hundreds of reporters from all over the world waiting for Trump to come out and give his final press conference before leaving. Not exactly the ideal place to do sensitive source based reporting.

Michael Barbaro

Right? Not a room in which you want to call people and say, hey, it's Tyler Pager from New York Times trying to figure out what's going on with Air Force One. People would overhear that, Right.

Tyler Pager

But very quickly, a team of reporters comes together and starts asking questions.

Donald Trump

Go ahead.

Tyler Pager

Hey, Sean McCrearysh, New York Times. But why aren't you flying the new plane home?

Donald Trump

Say what?

Tyler Pager

Why aren't you flying on the new Air Force One?

Donald Trump

It's flying to Europe, to one of the big bases, two or three of the big bases where we can show it to the people. And we'll be going home by normal methods. But we.

Tyler Pager

And what we learn is that the story that the President is saying on social media is not exactly what has happened. What has happened is that the Secret Service has grown concerned about the plane and has urged the President to switch his itinerary and not take this Qatari jet out of Turkey and revert back to the old Air Force One.

Michael Barbaro

Which certainly suggests that they're worried that he might not be safe on the new plane flying out of Turkey in this moment.

Tyler Pager

Correct. Now, we don't have that fully confirmed at that moment, but I reach out to the White House to let them know this is what we're hearing and see if they have any comment. So, Michael, while this is happening, a senior FBI official reaches out to my colleagues in Washington and asks that we not run the story for national security reasons. He doesn't specify why and also asks us to identify our sources, which we do not do.

Michael Barbaro

Got it.

Tyler Pager

So we continue to report. The President takes off from Turkey, then he lands in England, walks across the tarmac and gets on the new Air Force One, the Qatari jet that was waiting for him in England. And when he gets on the new plane, he does a gaggle with the reporters on board.

Narrator/Announcer

What was the security concern that caused us to change planes?

Donald Trump

We sent this one in.

Tyler Pager

And he sort of downplays any security concern.

Narrator/Announcer

There wasn't a security concern.

Donald Trump

No, no. Why wouldn't.

Tyler Pager

But by the time he's doing that, me and my colleagues have confirmed that in fact it was a security concern that caused the change in planes. And we decide to Publish. As the President is back on the Qatari jet flying from England to Washington,

Michael Barbaro

if you'll permit me, I want to summarize what the story said, just so people understand. The story says that Trump flew the old Air Force One out of Turkey instead of the new Qatari donated retrofitted plane as a security precaution related to the resumption of hostilities in Iran, and that the new plane does not have all the same features as the old one, and that the switching of the planes was done at the urging of the Secret Service. That's what the story says.

Tyler Pager

That's correct.

Michael Barbaro

Obviously, that contradicts the President's claim that he was on Air Force One for old time's sake.

Tyler Pager

Right. And it also undercuts the President's public narrative about how magnificent and special and important this new Air Force One is. And what we learn in the aftermath of this story is that the President is outraged and furious that this has come out. We'll be right back.

Michael Barbaro

This podcast is supported by Audible.

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Michael Barbaro

This message comes from Betterment. Betterment's Dan Egan talks about tax loss harvesting. Tax loss harvesting is a tax management strategy. When you have a position that's gone down over time, we intentionally sell out of it to realize a loss, which we then say to the irs, hey, we lost money. You get to use that to offset your ordinary income every year, decreasing your tax burden. Investing involves risk performance, not guaranteed. Betterment does not offer tax advice. TLH may not be suitable for all customers. Learn more@betterment.com TLH terms so Tyler, after this reporting is published by the Times, and the President absorbs it and becomes quite agitated by it. What do you come to understand happens as a result?

Tyler Pager

So what my colleagues learn is that Kash Patel, the FBI Director, goes to the White House last week and is directed to oversee a leak investigation into our reporting. He spent roughly eight hours at the White House on Friday running the investigation there instead of the FBI headquarters, which is an enormous departure from historical practice.

Michael Barbaro

Historical practice would be what?

Tyler Pager

Well, first, that there would be complete separation between the White House and the FBI in terms of running these sorts of probes. The White House is supposed to be separate from the Department of Justice, and obviously, the FBI is underneath the point of justice. When I covered President Biden, Merrick Garland, the then Attorney General, wouldn't even like to be in the same room as the President unless it was for a specific reason. And those norms have been completely shattered. But even this is a step further, having the FBI director run an investigation out of the White House.

Michael Barbaro

You described what Kash Patel is overseeing as a leak investigation. Just explain that.

Tyler Pager

So, essentially, they're trying to figure out who provided information that informed our coverage of security concerns around the new Air Force One. And where this Leads is. The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, issues subpoenas that FBI agents attempt to deliver to our homes on Friday evening. Now, in my case, I wasn't at my home in D.C. huh. I had flown directly from Turkey to New York to attend a birthday party for my mother. So unlike some of my colleagues, I haven't yet received the subpoena.

Michael Barbaro

Well, based on what you know about the subpoenas that have been delivered, do they actually say, and what do they require?

Tyler Pager

The subpoena calls for testimony in front of a grand jury in New York for an alleged violation of federal criminal law. It does not have any specifics about the topic or the case. But based on who received the subpoenas, we know it was related to our coverage of Air Force One.

Michael Barbaro

That's pretty vague. So is the Department of Justice with these subpoenas. Investigating Times journalists now.

Tyler Pager

So a Justice Department spokeswoman said in a statement that we are not the targets. Rather, quote, those leaking classified information are. But, Michael, I want to underscore, being subpoenaed to a federal grand jury is a huge deal and something that does carry legal risks and does impact the way that we're able to do our jobs and is not something you see very often, if at all, in which journalists are called to testify. There are First Amendment protections and other policies and procedures that say the Justice Department is supposed to use subpoenaing journalists as a last resort, not a first step in a leak investigation. And it's very rare for the Department of Justice to issue subpoenas for reporters to appear in front of a federal grand jury.

Michael Barbaro

Gotcha. So here, I think we have to break the fourth wall for just a moment and acknowledge that the New York Times has lawyers and that they have responded to these subpoenas. So I want to read what the newsroom's top lawyer, David McCraw, had to say about the subpoenas just a few hours after they were issued. He said, quote, this brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs. And so, Tyler, I want to ask you about that, because these subpoenas are not occurring in a vacuum. We've reported a lot on this show, and the Times has reported a lot in its pages about the Trump administration's aggressive approach toward journalists and journalism in the second term. So should we see these subpoenas as an extension of that, just put this into a larger context?

Tyler Pager

Absolutely. We've seen an aggressive attempt by this administration to pressure news organizations in a variety of ways, whether that's filing lawsuits, threatening to file lawsuits, kicking journalists out of the pool of reporters that travel and cover the president, changing the ways in which we are able to cover the president, criticizing news organizations, deriding them as fake news, just sort of the overall rhetoric about the role of a free press in the United States. And it's not just media organizations and free speech advocates that are concerned about this. Members of Congress are, too. And one interesting thing about this whole situation is that the two men who played a big role in these subpoenas, Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in New York, and Todd Blanch, the Acting Attorney General, each had confirmation hearings before the Senate this week. Clayton is trying to become the Director of National Intelligence, and Blanche is nominated to serve as the official Attorney general. And during those hearings, Democratic senators really laid into these officials about the subpoenas. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York called them rough and aggressive.

Michael Barbaro

I would just urge that this doesn't sound like the proper independent legal process

Narrator/Announcer

that we would normally expect for issuance of a subpoena.

Michael Barbaro

The characteristics surrounding it seem rushed, aggressive,

Narrator/Announcer

with an unnecessary urgency, and questioned why

Tyler Pager

the subpoenas were issued so quickly. It's not even clear that the subpoenas that you signed followed the administration's policy, which requires the government to first make all reasonable attempts to obtain information from other sources. What specific actions did you take before you signed the subpoenas? I can tell you that Ron Wyden of Oregon asked if the Justice Department made reasonable attempts to obtain information before they had issued the subpoenas. But I think the most interesting exchange was between Peter Welch of Vermont and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Michael Barbaro

Do you support Mr. Patel's efforts to subpoena and get reporters under the grill to disclose who their confidential sources are? The Department of Justice requires that I authorize it, which I did. And those reporters were not targeting reporters. They're material witnesses. Just like a reporter would be a material witness to a car crash. There are witnesses. And so. And the question you want to ask them is, who were their sources? No. Goes to the heart of the First Amendment.

Tyler Pager

No.

Michael Barbaro

The question we want.

Tyler Pager

So the crux of this is, Blanche is saying, all we're trying to do is figure out who talked to the reporters who talked to us. And Welch is saying, hang on. That's a big deal because it impinges on our ability as reporters and the free press to do our jobs.

Michael Barbaro

Right. And just to explain that if reporters are forced to divulge their sources, then those sources are not gonna talk to us as journalists. That is why the First Amendment offers these protections to journalists.

Tyler Pager

Exactly.

Michael Barbaro

I'm curious, Tyler, what the status of these subpoenas are at the moment and whether or not reporters, including you, are now gonna have to testify before a grand jury.

Tyler Pager

So here's what we know. The Times filed a motion on Wednesday to quash the subpoenas, basically to have them tossed out. But the motion, like everything else in this case, is sealed at the moment, so we don't know the exact wording of it. The Times is trying to get all of it unsealed, and that motion is going to make its way through the court system. And ultimately it will be up to a federal judge to decide whether the subpoenas are permissible.

Michael Barbaro

Gotcha. Simple question. Have these subpoenas changed your ability and the ability of our colleagues to keep reporting on the story?

Tyler Pager

Look, it definitely makes things harder and more complicated, but we're not stopping. We are continuing to do our jobs and report out this story. We're going to try to figure out how safe this plane is and if any corners were cut in retrofitting it for the President.

Michael Barbaro

Well, Tyler, to that point, I want to end our conversation by bringing us back to Air Force One, because from everything I can tell, this new Qatari donated plane is not as robustly protected as the original Air Force One, and therefore flying on it would seem inherently riskier. Perhaps we'll never know how much riskier, but riskier for those on board, including members of the President's cabinet, presidential staff, journalists, including journalists from the Times who end up traveling with the President. And ultimately, a pretty simple question here is, does that make sense?

Tyler Pager

That's the question a lot of people are asking. And it's going to be really interesting to see whether the President takes this plane overseas again. Because what this episode has revealed is it's not just lawmakers and people in the administration who are concerned, but it's also the Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting the President of the United States.

Michael Barbaro

Well, Tyler, thank you very much.

Tyler Pager

Thanks so much, Michael.

Michael Barbaro

We'll be right back.

Narrator/Announcer

This podcast is supported by Bayer. Science is a rigorous process that requires questions, testing, transparency and results that can be proven again and again. It's the approach that mapped the human genome, advancing therapies for chronic diseases. It transformed farming to help feed billions of people. It produces countless innovations that improve lives worldwide. This approach is integral to every breakthrough. Bayer brings forward, innovations that save lives and feed the world because the future depends on it. Learn more@sciencedelivers.com this podcast is supported by

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Michael Barbaro

Here's what else you need to know today. On Thursday, for the second day in a row, Canadian wildfires combined with a heat dome left a plume of dense smoke over much of the northeastern United States. The smoke made the air unhealthy to breathe in a string of large cities, including Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Minneapolis, as New Yorkers can see, and in some neighborhoods as New Yorkers can smell, smoke from the Canadian wildfires is over our city. In New York City, Mayor Zoran Mamdani urged residents to limit their time outdoors at unhealthy levels. Everyone, not just people with asthma and heart conditions, not just older adults, everyone may feel health effects. So today every New Yorker should take precautions. Canada is struggling to contain the wildfires. As of Thursday, more than 100 active fires were burning across northwestern Ontario. And in a speech on Thursday night, President Trump made at times outlandish claims about the vulnerability of America's voting system, drawing selectively from documents that the White House published online and that Trump claimed had been covered up.

Donald Trump

Put together, these disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it. It is not defensible.

Michael Barbaro

Trump, who has long argued without evidence that he won the 2020 election, focused on claims that China had compromised American voter rolls and had sought to undermine his reelection. But US Intelligence agencies have concluded that China did not try to interfere in the 2020 race in an effort to change the outcome.

Donald Trump

Every American, whether you're a Republican, Democrat, Independent or otherwise, should be able to agree that we deserve the most secure, honest and fair election system anywhere in the world.

Michael Barbaro

Today's episode was produced by Jack Decidoro, Mooj Zaidy and Olivia Nad. It was edited by M.J. davis Lynn and Michael Benoit and contains music by Dan Powell, Mary Lozano, Diane Wong and Rowan Misto. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Chris Wood. That's it for the daily I'm michael balbaro. See you on Sunday.

Narrator/Announcer

This podcast is supported by Bayer. Science is a rigorous process that requires questions, testing, transparency and results that can be proven again and again. It's the approach that mapped the human genome, advancing therapies for chronic diseases. It transformed farming to help feed billions of people. It produces countless innovations that improve lives worldwide. This approach is integral to every breakthrough. Bayer brings forward, innovations that save lives and feed the world because the future depends on it. Learn more@sciencedelivers.com.