Trump was photographed at the LIV Golf New York tournament at Trump National Bedminster on August 8 with visible bruising on his hand. Then a second set of photographs emerged showing the bruising had spread up his arm. The Daily Beast’s Katie Francis reported scrapes and band-aids on his fingers and noted he was “slouched” in a golf cart. “Trump is known for suspicious bruising, usually it’s the president’s hands — not arm — which draw attention,” Francis wrote. “His mysterious bruising has spread.” Trump is 80 years old. The spread of bruising to the arm is a development that hadn’t appeared in prior rounds of public health observation.
David Pakman, host of “The David Pakman Show,” addressed the Bedminster photographs in a video on Monday. “As disgusting and dilapidated as these images are, and they’re very disgusting, these images are nothing compared to what they represent about Trump’s presidency,” he said. He went on to cite the latest job numbers, which showed the US economy lost 23,000 jobs last month, a growing portion of the workforce leaving employment entirely, and consumer credit card balances climbing as households buy necessities on debt. “So now I’m paying interest on multiple months, and I got to stay in a job I hate because there might not be another good job available, or I’ll lose health care if I leave, and Trump is golfing,” Pakman said. The photograph and the economic data arrived in the same news cycle. The juxtaposition was noted.
The bruising photographs arrived two days after the Washington Post published a detailed account of the operation that moved Trump between aircraft in Turkey last month, the story that explained why Trump told reporters flying with him to lower their window shades before takeoff at the NATO summit in Ankara on July 8. CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who was on that flight, replayed the moment on her Monday program. Trump had smiled and said it was for “privacy,” which Collins now noted reads differently knowing what the press did not know at the time: that Trump was not on the plane with them.
The Post’s reporting confirmed that an Iranian assassination threat prompted an operation in which Trump was taken off the official Air Force One in an airport catering truck, “the catering truck, which typically loads in-flight meals, parked on the right side of Air Force One, partially shielded from media cameras,” per Slate’s Ian Prasad Philbrick’s analysis of the Post’s account, and transferred to a smaller Air Force C-32A that then flew Trump and a select group of aides out of Turkey. The plane the journalists believed carried the president took the Air Force One call sign. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boarded the C-32A separately using external stairs, in an apparent effort to make the smaller plane’s departure look routine. The journalists who believed they were flying with the president landed at Joint Base Andrews. Trump was already somewhere else.
The passenger list on the secret C-32A adds texture to the operation. Trump brought Dan Scavino, his White House Deputy Chief of Staff and long-time personal aide. He brought Natalie Harp, his executive assistant. He brought Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations and the aide who was charged alongside Trump in the classified documents case. He left Cabinet officials. He left the press pool. He left most of the White House staff. The people he chose to take on the secret plane are the people who have been with him in every iteration of the Trump operation for a decade. The people he left on the decoy were the people who, in his operational calculus, he could afford to have not know where he was.
Trump confirmed the operation on Wednesday in Geneva, Ohio, telling reporters: “Well, it’s only up to the Secret Service. I just follow what they’d like to do.” He said he gets “a lot of threats” and added: “Non-consequential presidents don’t get threats — and I think that I’m maybe the most consequential president.” At the time of the Turkey departure, per Raw Story’s reporting, he had told reporters he was flying the old plane “for old time’s sake” while acknowledging he was “No. 1 on the list for killing” as far as Iran was concerned. The downplayed public version and the catering truck operation were happening simultaneously.
The Turkish officials add the most complicated layer. According to Raw Story’s confirmed reporting, citing Middle East Eye, Turkish officials doubt the underlying assassination threat was real. One source characterized it as fabricated, possibly by Israeli intelligence, to derail Trump’s Iran negotiations and complicate his relationship with Turkish President Erdogan over issues including a potential F-35 sale. If the threat was fabricated, the catering truck operation was a response to intelligence that did not reflect actual danger. If the threat was real, the operation was necessary. The catering truck happened either way. The bruises are on the arm either way.
The operation produced one documented bureaucratic consequence. After leaks about the extent of the security threat on the new Qatari-gifted jet that had been intended to replace the aging Air Force One, Trump’s then-Manhattan US Attorney Jay Clayton, since appointed Director of National Intelligence, moved for subpoenas against New York Times reporters who had covered the story. The president’s response to a leak about a security operation was to have the prosecutor he just made the nation’s top intelligence official pursue the journalists who published the leak. Clayton is now the DNI. The subpoenas were sought. The catering truck is confirmed.
He is 80. The bruises are on the arm. He was moved through an airport in a food service vehicle while his press corps flew home on a plane they believed was carrying him. Turkish officials think the threat may have been fabricated. He called himself the most consequential president.
When the 80-year-old president’s bruising spreads up his arm and he confirms he was rerouted through a Turkish airport in a catering truck and Turkish officials suggest the assassination threat may have been fabricated, what exactly is the presidency navigating?
Sources
Raw Story: Trump’s bruises seen spreading up his arm in alarming new photo
Raw Story: Trump pulled ‘elaborate ruse’ with ‘decoy’ Air Force One to avoid assassination
Raw Story: Trump huddled ex-caddy and ‘human printer’ on secret flight, ditched cabinet officials
Raw Story: Trump’s Air Force One ruse revealed war’s end is ‘further away than ever’
