RedState columnist and author Buzz Patterson knows a thing or two about presidential security and flight operations.
After all, he served 20 years on active duty as an Air Force pilot, received the Air Medal for flying combat support missions into Sarajevo, and from 1996 to 1998 he served as a senior military aide to President Bill Clinton and was put in charge of the nuclear football. Following his WH service, he became a commercial pilot and best-selling author.
He knows a thing or two about what he’s talking about, then, and he’s deeply concerned that top-secret information about President Trump’s early July decoy flight out of Ankara, Turkey, was leaked to the media in August. The president was seen publicly boarding Air Force One, but was then secretly transferred to a different military aircraft due to Iranian threats.
Patterson says we have no business knowing about it:
A retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who carried the nuclear "football" for former President Bill Clinton is sounding the alarm that exposing the vital national security secrets that protected President Trump from a potential attack on Air Force One could put presidents,… pic.twitter.com/FzOQ7YcCSv
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 13, 2026
A retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who carried the nuclear "football" for former President Bill Clinton is sounding the alarm that exposing the vital national security secrets that protected President Trump from a potential attack on Air Force One could put presidents, military personnel and the White House press corps in danger for years to come.
"If somebody leaked it, it was somebody involved in the process, and that scares the hell out of me," Robert 'Buzz' Patterson tells Fox News Digital.
He added that the operation was “brilliant” and wishes he had been part of it, it was so well done.
MORE: Buzz Cut: Farewell, California
Trump Just Nuked the Media's 'Decoy Plane' Narrative Into Oblivion
Frank Kendall, who served as former President Joe Biden's Air Force secretary, had his security clearance abruptly yanked Friday by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell revealed that Kendall had made an "unauthorized disclosure of classified information regarding Air Force One’s capabilities to a media outlet."
Patterson warns that the media leak is an ominous sign:
What alarms him, Patterson said, is not that Trump’s security team used the tactic — including the catering truck sleight of hand he was intimately a part of during the Clinton administration — but that details of how it was done are now spilling into public view.
"I hope that they prosecute this to the fullest," Patterson said. "Whoever leaked that, in my opinion, and having been involved in this, was highly placed in that process."
"There’s only a few people who actually know exactly what’s going down, and that’s by design," he added. "So if somebody leaked it, it was somebody involved in the process, and that scares the hell out of me."
He added that despite the press clutching their pearls and trying to make the story all about them, it’s something we’ve routinely done in the past and will continue to do in the future:
"We use decoys all the time," he said. "We use decoy in the motorcade routes."
"You'll sometimes see the two beasts will switch out under bridges and overpasses. We do the same thing with airplanes, especially in international trips. There's always two Air Force Ones that go. Obviously, one's a decoy and it's also a spare for spare parts in case something happens to the primary.
"So we've been doing it for years.
And guess who else once snuck into a catering truck? Former President Bill Clinton, who also once used a decoy plane, according to Buzz.
Patterson's takeaway? This unauthorized leak puts all future presidents at risk as well, and we may have to someday stop all presidential visits near war zones if we get too “predictable.”
He also had a pointed message for the hopelessly biased mainstream media:
Note to @CNN, @wapo, @nytimes: If you’ll allow some truth in your reporting, I’m available. Comments and DM are on. Go. https://t.co/YXDkBSKHSK
— Buzz Patterson (@BuzzPatterson) August 13, 2026
They probably won’t call, because they don’t actually want to hear the truth.
Watch more of the interview here.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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