Trump Clears Up Mystery Behind Air Force One Emergency Slide

President Donald Trump cleared up some confusion on Wednesday after an emergency slide deployed on his new presidential aircraft as it sat on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews.

Trump — who was headed to Dallas for the first-ever Republican National Committee Midterm Convention — was still aboard Marine One at the time. While the slide remained deployed, the president’s old plane also rolled up and parked a short distance away, prompting confusion about which plane Trump would take and why.

Trump quickly shrugged off concerns about the slide when he disembarked and spoke with reporters, saying it was just being checked out before his flight and assuring them nothing was wrong with his new plane.

“So they’re checking the slide over here, and I think it’s going to take 15 minutes. They were doing a check on the slide, you know, the emergency. So I think it takes about 15 minutes,” he told reporters. “They want to make sure everything works perfectly.”

When asked whether he was confident the plane was safe, Trump replied, “Yeah, I am, or I wouldn’t be on it.”

Crews removed the slide, and Trump departed aboard the new aircraft without further incident.

Questions regarding Trump’s safety in the air have taken a different tone since July, when the president was quietly transferred to another plane as he left a NATO meeting in Turkey. According to a report from The Washington Post, Trump was taken away from the older Air Force One in a catering truck — apparently due to an assassination threat from Iran — while staffers and reporters remained on board.

Despite the threat and the apparent last-minute switch, the White House has said on several occasions that the Qatari-gifted plane has the “high-level security protocols” needed to protect the president.

“The new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the President and his staff,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement at the time. “As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats.”