Personnel work near Air Force One ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's trip to the Republican National Midterm Convention, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., September 9, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump refused to get off of the Marine One helicopter on Wednesday as he arrived at Andrews Air Force Base and reporters waiting for him couldn't understand why, CNN reported.
According to those on the ground, Trump is flying his Qatari jet to the Texas convention he's holding over the next two days. But the jet's emergency slide had burst out of the plane on the starboard side, and it appeared that the crew on the ground worked to tuck it back into the plane.
The older Air Force One plane was then seen "moving into position" if the plane wasn't deemed safe again.
Once they began packing it back into the plane, Trump exited the helicopter and told reporters that they were simply "checking" the emergency slide. He promised it would only take about 15 minutes.
"Do you know why they are checking the slide? Is there a security concern?" a reporter from ABC News asked.
"They wanna make sure everything works perfectly," Trump said. He later attacked her as "fake news."
Trump's gifted plane faced problems recently when he was scheduled to leave a NATO meeting in Türkiye. Reports said that the plane lacks some of the older presidential aircraft’s anti-missile defenses, including infrared countermeasures designed to divert heat-seeking missiles.
The jet from Qatar also didn't originally have the same protection against electromagnetic pulses, which could disrupt electronics during a crisis.
The flub in Türkiye prompted questions about whether the jet would ever be safe enough for a president to use outside of the United States.
"That is gonna [infuriate] him," commented foreign policy reporter Laura Rozen.
When Trump returned to the White House on Monday evening, he was seen yelling at the Marine One flight crew.
Everytown for Gun Safety communications director Max Steele cracked, "lmao you know he's the maddest he's ever been."
White House columnist Niall Stanage posted the copy of the White House pool report and called it, "One of the more peculiar White House pool reports of recent times."
"The old (white and blue) AF1 could be seen moving from its hangar into position a couple hundred meters behind the Qatar-gifted plane as M1 [Marine One] rolled to a stop. The old AF1 then deployed its front and rear steps. Meanwhile, on the Qatari plane, Pool noticed that what appeared to be an inflatable emergency slide had been deployed from the right-hand side front door, opposite the left-hand side door that POTUS normally enters by," the pool report from AFT's Danny Kemp read.
One person questioned whether it would be a good time to test the slide while the president was landing.
#DEVELOPING: The emergency slide has deployed on the new Qatar-donated Air Force One while on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews. President Trump is reportedly still inside Marine One waiting to disembark. pic.twitter.com/yEAg1i52k1
— Luke Brenner (@TheLukeReport) September 9, 2026