- Snopes is still investigating the claim that White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt remained on the Air Force One flight from Ankara, Turkey, from which U.S. President Donald Trump had been secretly removed due to a credible threat from Iran, per The New York Times.
- The rumor followed the announcement that Leavitt was resigning from her post. This announcement happened two days after the New York Times report.
- A spokesperson for the White House and New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who reported the story, both said Leavitt was not on the plane. However, we could not identify anyone who was present on the flight to confirm. For this reason, we left the claim unrated.
- Snopes will update this report if additional information surfaces. We are attempting to identify people who were present on the flight for direct confirmation.
- We encourage anyone with direct knowledge on whether Leavitt was on that flight to send us a message.
After The New York Times reported U.S. President Donald Trump had been secretly smuggled off of Air Force One in Ankara, Turkey, in July 2026 due to a credible threat from Iran, a rumor spread that White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had remained on Air Force One as an “unwitting decoy.”
Some social media posts speculated this was the real reason Leavitt, mother to two young children, decided to leave her post a month later.
The claim appeared on Facebook, Instagram and X. One X user reshared a post reporting Leavitt was resigning, adding she “was on the decoy plane” (archived):
Meanwhile, several Snopes readers searched the website and emailed, seeking to confirm the veracity of the rumor.
A spokesperson for the White House and New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who first reported the story, told Snopes that Leavitt was not on the plane. However, we did not receive direct confirmation from Leavitt or anyone else present on that flight. For this reason, we have left the claim unrated.
Asked whether Leavitt was on the flight, the White House spokesperson said, “This is not true, she was not on the trip.” The spokesperson did not respond to a follow-up email asking whether she had stayed in Washington, D.C., for the duration of the trip to Turkey.
Haberman, who confirmed she was not on the flight, said, “Leavitt also was not on that flight.”
We have attempted to identify more people who were present on that flight and we will update this report should we receive more information on this matter.
A separate New York Times article reported that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, top domestic policy adviser Stephen Miller and communications director Steven Cheung all were present on the flight. Cheung is higher in the White House hierarchy than Leavitt.
We asked the White House to confirm Cheung’s and Miller’s presence
For further reading, Snopes has covered a number of rumors about Leavitt, including the claim that she said there would be “shots fired” before the White House correspondents’ dinner shooting.
Do you have more information on this topic? Send us a message or reach out to this reporter on Signal at rascouetsnopes.41 or via email at anna@snopes.com.
