How Trump’s New Air Force One Poses Potential Security Risks

Here's why President Trump's new Air Force One potentially poses a security risk for the president.Earlier this month, President Trump flew on a retrofitted Qatari jet, that's his new Air Force One, that lacks some key security enhancements that the Air Force has relied on to protect the president for years.It was July 8th, and President Trump was at a NATO conference in Turkey, which borders Iran, where there's an ongoing war between the United States and Iran.While he was there and preparing to come home, he was told that there was a perceived security threat that was gonna require him to switch off of his new plane.And one of our reporters, Sean McCreish, actually asked President Trump about why that switch had happened.Why aren't you flying on the new Air Force One home?

It's flying to Europe to one of the big bases.

That was the first time that we had evidence suggesting that there was perhaps some concerns about just how adequate were the security systems on his new plane.This is what the existing Air Force One Boeing 747 looks like.It goes through extensive upgrades that last several years to prepare it to be an Air Force One.One of the structural modifications that they make is up here in the front, where they put an exit that is lower and more secure and that has built -in staircase so that when the president is exiting the plane, he doesn't have to rely upon ground crews.But on the new plane, It doesn't exist.Another structural retrofit is here in the tail.

In the old plane, there are two auxiliary power units that are basically electricity generators so that they're never going to lose power and make sure that the president is protected and has a mobile command center just in case he needs to operate the military from that plane.And on the new plane, there's only one of them.The old Air Force One also has a missile defense system, and some of these same things aren't on the Qatari retrofitted plane.It's not just the president that flies on this plane, but other top government and foreign leaders.The New York Times feels really strongly that there's an enormous public interest in examining the choices that President Trump and his staff made around Air Force One.The White House gave us a detailed statement, and the statement says, basic equipment that it needs to do the job.

The White House generally did not dispute basically any of the findings that we have come up with about some of the compromises that were made to accelerate turning around the Qatari plane and getting it to President Trump.But recently, President Trump announced that the plane's going to be taken out of service to max it out, which is an acknowledgement that it is not as secure as they want it to be.