“We never were provided any opportunity to consent to being used like this,” The Post quoted one journalist as saying. “We aren’t Air Force or Secret Service — we didn’t sign up for this job to put ourselves on the line to protect the president.”

It remains unclear whether the journalists and government staff aboard Air Force One faced any direct threat. The Post also reported that the CIA had “low confidence” in intelligence about a potential Iranian threat.

Two US officials, speaking anonymously, told The Post that F-16 fighter jets were deployed as armed escorts during the flight to Britain. One said some of the fighters flew just off the wingtips of the aircraft carrying Trump for part of the journey.

By concealing the president’s decoy manoeuvre, journalists said the White House had violated a longstanding press-pool norm, under which reporters are responsible for accurately accounting for the president’s movements.

Some journalists later said they felt endangered after learning that Trump had been moved off the aircraft because of the potential threat.

“Transparency was thrown entirely out the window, replaced by outright deception,” Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief for the New York Times, said in a Times story. “That’s a terrible precedent. And the fact that it left journalists and staff members unknowingly exposed to a potential threat made it much, much worse.”

The White House press pool is a rotating group of journalists responsible for covering the president’s activities and sharing reports, photos and footage with the wider press corps.

“There’s a reason that press pool is often called the body watch,” said journalist and historian Garrett Graff, according to The Post. “You’re there in case something goes wrong.”

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and several White House aides travelled with Trump aboard an Air Force C-32A military aircraft, which the president boarded after being secretly moved from Air Force One amid concerns about a potential Iranian threat.

Trump later confirmed that he had been secretly moved from Air Force One to another military aircraft while leaving Turkey, saying he had followed instructions from the Secret Service and military over security concerns.