Haberman reveals the priorities that Trump’s Air Force One ruse exposed

President Donald Trump's recent Air Force One switch fiasco has seemingly revealed much about the things he prioritizes from his staff, according to reporter Maggie Haberman, based on the choices he made about who joined him on the secret flight.

Haberman is a journalist and author who has extensively covered Trump's time in national politics, including the bombshell recent book about his destructive second term, Regime Change, which she co-wrote with Jonathan Swan. This week, she sat for an interview with Jessica Yellin, the founder of News Not Noise, and during the start of the conversation, she pressed Haberman about the implications of the staffers that Trump chose to come with him on a secret military flight out of Turkey last month.

As Yellin established in the discussion, Trump opted to be accompanied by his close personal assistant Natalie Harp, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, top aide Walt Nauta and Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, along with the press pool, notably remained on the legacy Air Force One model that Trump snuck out of amid fears of an attack by Iran.

Digging into the particular connection each person on the secret flight had to Trump, two likely reasons for their inclusions emerged: personal support and social media.

"In terms of the personal aides that Trump brought with him, it isn't surprising," Haberman explained. "In the sense that Walt Nauta, he is now the head of Oval Office Advance. He was also Trump's indicted co-conspirator in the Mar-a-Lago documents case by special counsel Jack Smith."

She continued: "Natalie Harp is with him in almost every meeting. She is the person who sits alongside the wall in the Oval Office, she goes and gets him printouts, as she did when Jonathan and I were in the Oval Office for a fact-checking interview for this book. And Dan Scavino is another longtime source of support. One throughline for Harp and Scavino is that they operate his social media feed, and so I could see a world where he wanted them there to help him with that."

Haberman was also quick to note that there might have been a simple practical reason for Rubio, and numerous other top-ranking officials, staying behind on the older Air Force One model. As Haberman noted, it would be reasonable to imagine concerns about too many leading figures in the administration being in one place, raising the possible damage that could be done by one attack.