Good morning, it's Thursday, August 13. The Washington Post revealed that Trump was secretly moved off Air Force One via a catering truck in Turkey — while staff and journalists unknowingly flew aboard the plane as a decoy.

Also in today's issue: ICE's $20 million shock gloves, Vaccine schedule slashed by order, $158M contract to troubled group, Three executions in one day.

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The president of the United States boarded Air Force One in Turkey, waved to the cameras, and then quietly climbed into an airport catering truck.

That's not from a political thriller. It happened on July 8, after a NATO summit in Ankara, and the Washington Post reported it on Monday. You've probably seen the headline by now. Here's the part the headline doesn't cover — and here's why it should matter to you even if the president got home safe.

After U.S. intelligence found a credible Iranian threat against Trump during the summit, the Secret Service moved fast. Trump walked up the stairs of the older Air Force One Boeing 747, entered the cabin, then was moved through a far-side exit door into a catering truck raised to meet the plane. He was driven across the tarmac and placed aboard a smaller military jet — a C-32A — for the flight to Britain.

Here's the thing. Everyone else stayed behind. Journalists, White House staff, and officials remained aboard Air Force One. They were not told about the threat. The plane took off with its transponder switched off, flew to RAF Mildenhall in England, and served as a decoy. The White House told the public the president was on that flight. He was not.

Now look, there's a version of this story where the Secret Service did its job, the president was protected, and everything worked out. That's true as far as it goes. But the part that touches every American household is what happened to everyone else on that plane — and what didn't happen in Congress.

The people aboard that aircraft were used, without their knowledge, as part of a deception designed to draw fire. If the plane was too dangerous for the president, what does it mean that dozens of staffers and reporters flew on it without a word of warning? Trump himself said the decoy plane "was at greater risk." That's the president admitting the flight everyone else was on faced the bigger danger. And nobody told them.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, called the operation "unprecedented and surreal." The Committee to Protect Journalists raised concerns about the treatment of reporters aboard the decoy. But the deeper failure is procedural.

The Gang of Eight — the eight top congressional leaders who are, by law, supposed to receive briefings on the most sensitive national security operations — was not told. That group exists because the country decided, after Watergate, that the executive branch should not run covert operations without at least a small circle of elected leaders in the loop. When that system gets bypassed, the check disappears. And once a precedent is set for skipping it, it becomes easier to skip it the next time.

Here's the civic consequence that's easy to miss. If your member of Congress sits on one of the intelligence committees, they are the person who can push back when the executive branch overreaches on security matters. They can't push back on something they don't know about. And you — as the voter who put them there — can't hold anyone accountable for a decision that was never disclosed.

We've seen this tension before. After the U.S. strikes on Iran earlier this year, the Gang of Eight was briefed — late, but briefed. That operation involved military force against another country. This one involved the president's own safety and the safety of everyone around him. If the bar for briefing Congress has quietly gone up, that's a shift worth watching far beyond this one event.

The question now is whether Congress demands a full accounting — or lets this slide into precedent. Blumenthal has called for a briefing. Whether House and Senate leadership joins that call will say a lot about where executive oversight actually stands heading into the midterms.

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ICE plans to spend up to $20 million on electric-shock gloves for immigration officers, according to a DHS acquisition notice published Monday. The no-bid contract would supply CTG-5 G.L.O.V.E. devices — made by Compliant Technologies of Lexington, Kentucky — that deliver up to 380 volts through direct skin contact and activate in about one second. The manufacturer's own user guide warns against using the glove on children, pregnant women, the elderly, or disabled people — or on anyone showing only verbal defiance. The ACLU's deputy director on policing said ICE has spent the past year showing it is "too quick to use force." When the maker markets a device as an "invisible partner" that needs no visible reach for a holster, the oversight questions are obvious.

Trump signed an executive order August 10 cutting universally recommended childhood vaccines from 18 diseases to 11 and ordering the MMR shot split into three separate vaccines — products that don't currently exist in the U.S. The order directs the Department of Justice to sue states without religious exemptions for school vaccine rules. The American Academy of Pediatrics warned the changes have no basis in science, and a large new study of 2.5 million children found no link between the MMR shot and autism — the claim Trump repeated at the signing. More than 2,400 measles cases have been confirmed in 2026, a 35-year high per the CDC, as children head back to school. Splitting a proven vaccine based on debunked science, in the middle of a measles surge, is not a policy disagreement — it's a public health gamble with children's lives.

The Trump administration awarded a no-bid $158 million contract to Our Rescue — founded by former ICE agent Tim Ballard, who inspired "Sound of Freedom" — to represent unaccompanied migrant children in immigration court. Ballard left in 2023; five women have since accused him of sex trafficking in federal court. It is unclear whether Our Rescue employs immigration lawyers — per NPR, its website says only that it offers "legal support to help prosecute offenders." The contract was issued by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the HHS agency that oversees care for children who cross the border alone. Handing $158 million in public money — with no competitive bidding — to a group with no clear legal capacity and a founder facing trafficking charges is a governance failure on its face.

Three states — Tennessee, Alabama, and Oklahoma — are set to execute prisoners today, the first time since 2010 that three U.S. executions will take place on the same day. Tennessee's execution comes three months after a botched lethal injection in which an IV team struggled for over an hour before Governor Bill Lee called it off and issued a one-year reprieve. Forty-seven people were executed in 2025, the highest total since 2009, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Support for capital punishment has dropped to 52% — a 50-year low per Gallup — with most Americans under 55 now opposed. The country is executing more people while more of its citizens oppose the practice — a gap between policy and public will that rarely closes on its own.

Confirmed U.S. measles cases so far in 2026 — a 35-year high, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The surge comes as Trump signs an order cutting the childhood vaccine schedule and children head back to school across the country.

P.S. Should Congress have been told about the decoy flight? Hit Reply — one word is enough.