Robert “Buzz” Patterson isn’t a talking head. He flew combat support missions into Sarajevo. He carried the nuclear football for Bill Clinton for two years. He knows exactly how presidential security operations work — how many people are in the loop, how tightly compartmentalized the information is, and how few people could have known what happened in Turkey when President Trump was rerouted from flying on Air Force One to a secret jet after U.S. intelligence learned of a credible Iranian plot against his life.
Which is why his assessment is so alarming. “If somebody leaked it, it was somebody involved in the process, and that scares the hell out of me,” Patterson told Fox News Digital. “There’s only a few people who actually know exactly what’s going down, and that’s by design.”
The operation itself was brilliant — Patterson said so explicitly, and he wishes he could have been part of it. Trump was seen publicly boarding Air Force One in Turkey while Iranian assassination threats were active. He was secretly transferred to a different military aircraft via a catering truck — a sleight of hand that Patterson confirmed is a standard, long-established presidential security tactic used by multiple administrations including Clinton’s.
“We use decoys all the time,” Patterson said. “We use decoys in motorcade routes. You’ll sometimes see the two beasts switch out under bridges and overpasses. We do the same thing with airplanes, especially on international trips.”
And because only a very small number of people are brought into any specific operation by design, the leak necessarily came from inside that tight circle. That’s what scares Patterson — not the tactic, but the disclosure. Every future president is now less safe because this operation’s mechanics are public knowledge.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth acted immediately. Biden’s Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall had his security clearance yanked Friday after Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell revealed he had made “an unauthorized disclosure of classified information regarding Air Force One’s capabilities to a media outlet.”
What doesn’t happen routinely is those details leaking to the press. The media’s response to all of this is the part that deserves its own reckoning. Journalists spent the week generating outrage about being deceived — arguing they should have been informed of classified security arrangements designed to protect the president from an active assassination threat. Patterson had a direct message for CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times: if they want the truth about what actually happened and why it was necessary, he’s available. Comments on. DMs open.
They probably won’t call, because understanding the operation would require acknowledging that the people managing presidential security made exactly the right call — and that the story is not about a press corps that wasn’t notified, but about a leaker who should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
The operation was brilliant. The leak was treasonous. Those two facts can coexist, and Buzz Patterson — the man who once carried the nuclear football — is making sure everyone understands both.
