2026-08-12T04:01:29.017Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/12/politics/trump-air-force-one-iran-war
唐纳德·特朗普总统在伊朗威胁下，秘密搭乘餐车从一个北约国家逃离，这一最新尴尬事件，折射出一场一再打破其“胜利”宣称的战争。
特勤局尽其所能，用一切必要手段将特朗普于7月从土耳其转移走，最终让他乘坐了一架不同于自20世纪90年代以来接送总统回国的专机。
但由《华盛顿邮报》率先报道的这起事件的迟来细节，掀起了新一轮重大政治风波。最关键的是，这场诡计催生了关于这场不受欢迎的战争的全新负面形象，而特朗普根本无法结束这场战争。
总统面临潜在威胁本身，并不意味着他对伊朗的战争是失败的。但他在北约峰会后秘密离开的场面，很可能会被海外解读为对美国实力的又一次冒犯。这也引出了一个问题：如果特朗普连在一个主要盟友的领土上都无法保障自身安全，那么他的政府声称几乎摧毁了伊朗的军事能力和地区恐怖威胁的说法，又怎能让人完全信服？
伊朗尚未就此置评。但从表面上看，伊朗成功迫使特朗普躲躲藏藏，这无疑是一场宣传上的胜利。尽管特朗普一贯虚张声势，但伊朗政权似乎并未走向崩溃，也没有乞求谈判。
安卡拉机场的这场闹剧，只是现实又一次嘲弄了政府的乐观战争叙事。
例如，特朗普周一再次坚称霍尔木兹海峡“现在已经通航”。但这条关键航道实际上仍处于伊朗的控制之下，这意味着美军已经奋战数月，试图恢复战前的现状——即航道畅通——的局面。
与此同时，没人再数得清特朗普到底有多少次预测协议即将达成，结果僵局却仍在持续。
另一个表明美国战略混乱迹象的是，特朗普仅用几天就宣布打赢的这场战争，已经严重耗尽了美国的导弹储备。据美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）上周报道，其中包括一套关键导弹防御系统近80%的拦截弹。
奇怪的是，尽管身份特殊，总统们却经常出入简陋场所，因为安保措施迫使他们从地下车库、后门、厨房和服务电梯进入建筑。因此，就连住在金碧辉煌的海湖庄园的核心人物，或许也不会对在安卡拉挤在液压驱动的餐车里感到太过震惊。
但特朗普秘密离开土耳其的行为，与他将自己塑造成赢家和强者的自我形象格格不入。
即便在2024年遇袭后浑身是伤、衣衫不整，他仍站起身来，挥舞拳头高呼“战斗，战斗”。今年4月一名枪手试图闯入白宫记者协会晚宴现场时，特朗普还在电视上坚称自己不会被吓倒，活动必须照常进行。
“唐纳德·特朗普绝对痛恨这类事情，”特朗普第一任期的通讯主任阿莉莎·法拉·格里芬周二在CNN的《焦点》节目中告诉菲尔·马廷利，“他当初因为白宫的威胁环境不得不躲进掩体时就很反感……他想立刻回去，表明自己不害怕，也没有逃跑。”
如今已是CNN评论员的格里芬补充道：“这让我觉得，这是一场非常真实的威胁。如果他愿意采取这些措施，真的这么做了。这也反映了我们在中东所处的局势。”
特朗普在停机坪上的“调包计”，还引发了人们对总统专机机队的新争议。此前他曾放弃乘坐卡塔尔捐赠的全新红白蓝配色专机，批评者警告该机缺乏足够的总统安保系统。特朗普和白宫均否认威胁是他们转而使用备用飞机的原因。
此外还有一个问题：当特朗普先在电视上露面、几分钟前刚登上过那架飞机，随后又秘密离开时，机组人员、特勤局特工、记者和其他工作人员是否面临致命危险？
周二，有记者问特朗普，为何他乘坐专机被视为过于危险，而记者们却不受同样限制。
“我乘坐的那架飞机风险更高……因为他们更有可能盯上那架飞机，”总统说道。
但他的回答并未切中要害，因为他登上总统专机的举动，已经给所有人留下了他打算乘坐该机出行的印象——直到他秘密离开。
伊利诺伊州州长JB·普里茨克是潜在的2028年民主党总统候选人，他周二告诉CNN的艾琳·伯内特，特朗普“为了自保将人们置于危险之中——这就是唐纳德·特朗普的为人”。
普里茨克随后将这一事件与更广泛的战争联系起来，称：“他愿意将士兵置于危险之中……记者和他自己的工作人员在一架显然受到威胁的飞机上时，他却像猫一样偷偷溜走，躲进了餐车里。”
普里茨克的言论将这场闹剧置于中期选举斗争的中心。如果民主党在11月赢得国会参众两院中的一院或两院，这一事件很可能会引发调查。
特朗普至少经历过两次直接刺杀企图，他余生都可能面临来自伊朗的袭击威胁。这一威胁可以追溯到他第一任期，当时他下令发动袭击，击毙了伊朗少将卡西姆·苏莱曼尼。在当前战争开始时，美国和以色列的空袭导致最高领袖阿里·哈梅内伊被杀，伊朗的报复动机进一步增强。
今年7月哈梅内伊葬礼上精心策划的示威活动中，抗议者高呼要处死特朗普。因此，特勤局认真对待任何可能的袭击情报，是有充分理由的。过去有报道称，土耳其境内有反对德黑兰政府的伊朗人被杀害，而伊朗政权一直是世界上最突出的恐怖主义输出国之一。
“我完全相信，某些支持伊朗的实体可能对总统构成严重威胁。过去几年，坦率地说，甚至可以追溯到几十年前，美国、英国和许多欧洲国家都挫败或 disrupted 了支持伊朗的袭击，”退役美国陆军中将卡伦·吉布森周二在《焦点》节目中表示。“他们已经证明了自己有能力和意图实施这类袭击。”
特朗普7月曾警告，如果伊朗试图或成功暗杀他，1000枚导弹“已处于锁定和加载状态，瞄准伊朗伊斯兰共和国，后续还有数千枚导弹随即跟进”。实际上，如果总统被杀，任何报复行动都不会由他留下的命令决定，而是由他的继任者——在当前情况下是副总统JD·万斯——来决定。为了恢复美国的威慑力和可信度，美国很可能会大幅升级行动。
尽管如此，值得注意的是，特朗普并未对自己在土耳其的不体面撤离做出情绪化回应。或许他迄今为止成功隐瞒了此事，保住了颜面。但在面临任务升级可能导致美军重大伤亡时，他也一直会在岔路口退缩。
特勤局在土耳其的行动，有可能避免了一场可能将美国更深拖入泥潭的袭击。
但特朗普偷偷摸摸逃离土耳其的行为，让他更难辩称自己让世界变得更安全了。
What Trump’s catering-truck escape says about a war that won’t end
2026-08-12T04:01:29.017Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/12/politics/trump-air-force-one-iran-war
President Donald Trump’s use of a catering truck in a secret escape from a NATO country amid an Iranian threat is the latest embarrassing twist of a war that repeatedly defies his claims of victory.
The Secret Service did its job by using whatever method was necessary to spirit Trump out of Turkey in July, ultimately on an alternative jet to one that has been bringing presidents home safely since the 1990s.
But belated revelations about the drama, first reported by the Washington Post, kicked up a major new political storm. Most significantly, the ruse conjured up damaging new imagery about an unpopular war that Trump can’t end.
The existence of a potential threat against the president doesn’t in itself mean his war against Iran is a failure. But the spectacle of him leaving incognito after a NATO summit is likely to be interpreted overseas as a new affront to American power. It also raises this question: If Trump cannot guarantee his own safety on the territory of a major ally, how can his administration’s case that it has all but obliterated Iran’s military capability and regional terror threat be fully believed?
Iran has yet to comment. But its apparent success in metaphorically forcing Trump to take cover is a propaganda coup. For all the president’s bravado, the regime doesn’t seem to be heading for collapse or begging for a deal.
The hijinks at Ankara airport are just the latest occasion when reality has mocked the administration’s rosy war narrative.
Trump on Monday, for instance, insisted yet again that the Strait of Hormuz was “open now.” Yet the critical waterway remains effectively under Iran’s control, meaning that US forces have been fighting for months to return to the status quo — and open strait — that prevailed before the war.
Everyone has meanwhile lost count of Trump’s predictions that a deal is imminent, only for the stalemate to grind on.
In another sign of apparent US strategic disarray, the war that Trump declared won after a few days has seriously depleted US missile stocks, including nearly 80% of interceptors for a key missile defense system, CNN reported last week.
Oddly, given their position, presidents often travel through scruffy locations, since security precautions force them to enter buildings through underground garages, back entrances, kitchens and service elevators. So even the kingpin of gold-plated Mar-a-Lago may not have been too shocked to slum it in a hydraulic catering truck in Ankara.
But Trump’s clandestine departure from Turkey sits poorly with the president’s self-image as a winner and a strongman.
Even when bloodied and rumpled after an 2024 assassination attempt, he rose, pumped his fist and said “fight, fight.” When a gunman tried to rush the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in April, Trump went on TV to insist he wouldn’t be intimidated and the show must go on.
“Donald Trump absolutely hates anything like this,” the president’s first-term communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin told CNN’s Phil Mattingly on “The Lead” Tuesday. “He hated when he had to go to the bunker because of the threat environment in the White House … He wanted to go back immediately to show he’s not scared, he’s not running.”
Griffin, now a CNN commentator, added, “This speaks to me that this was a very real threat. If he’s willing to take these measures and to do it. It speaks to the moment we’re in, in the Middle East.”
Trump’s tarmac bait-and-switch also fueled new controversy over the presidential plane fleet, since he’d previously abandoned plans to fly his new red, white, and blue jet donated by Qatar, which critics warn lacks sufficient security systems for a president. The president and the White House have denied that a threat led them to resort to a backup aircraft.
Then, there’s the issue of whether staff, Secret Service agents, journalists and crew were in mortal danger when they took off on a plane that Trump had been shown on television boarding minutes previously — before secretly leaving.
On Tuesday, Trump was asked by reporters why it was considered too dangerous for him to fly on one of the planes usually used as Air Force One while the same did not apply to members of the press.
“The plane that I flew on was at greater risk … because that would be the plane, I think, that they would be more likely to go for,” the president said.
But his comment didn’t answer the question at issue, because by climbing aboard the presidential jet, he’d given every impression he planned to travel on it — before his unannounced departure.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, told CNN’s Erin Burnett Tuesday that Trump “put people in harm’s way to save himself — that’s who Donald Trump is.”
Pritzker then tied the incident to the wider war, saying, “He’s willing to put troops in harm’s way … he slinked away literally in a catering truck while the reporters and his own staff were on a plane that apparently was under threat.”
Pritzker’s comments put the drama at the center of the midterm election battle. And there will likely be investigations if Democrats win one or both chambers of Congress in November.
Trump, who has survived at least two direct assassination attempts, is likely to spend the rest of his life under the threat of an attack from Iran. His exposure dates to his first term, when he ordered an attack that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. Iran’s incentive grew when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in US and Israeli air strikes at the start of the current war.
Choreographed displays of defiance at Khamenei’s funeral in July saw protesters demand the death of the president. So there is good reason for the Secret Service to take any intelligence about possible attacks seriously. There have been past reports of killings of Iranians opposed to the Tehran government in Turkey, and the Iranian regime has been one of the world’s most prominent exporters of terrorism.
“I do find it entirely plausible that there might be a serious threat to the president by some Iranian-backed entity. The US, the UK, a number of European states have foiled or disrupted Iranian-backed attacks over the last several years, frankly going back decades,” retired US Army Lt. Gen. Karen Gibson said on “The Lead” Tuesday. “They’ve demonstrated an intent and a capacity to do this.”
Trump warned in July that 1,000 missiles were “Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow” if it attempted or succeeded in assassinating him. In practice, any response to the death of a president would not be decided by orders he left behind, but by his successor, in this case, Vice President JD Vance. A need to restore US deterrence and credibility would likely mandate a massive US escalation.
Still, it’s notable that Trump did not respond to his indecorous departure from Turkey with an emotional response of his own. Perhaps his success in keeping it quiet until now saved face. But he has also consistently reached forks in the road and balked at mission creep that could result in heavy US casualties.
It’s possible that the Secret Service’s actions in Turkey may have averted an attack that could have drawn the US deeper into a quagmire.
But Trump’s furtive flight from Turkey makes it much harder for him to argue he’s made the world safer.