Bill Maher has a theory about why the president brought Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth along on his sneaky escape mission amid an assassination threat.
The late-night host, 70, recounted to his audience the secret plot in which President Donald Trump, 80, escaped in a catering truck to a safer plane with selected aides, amid an Iranian plot to target Air Force One with a missile, as The Washington Post revealed this week.
“The controversy is that Trump put all his friends on the decoy plane,” Maher said, adding, “Not all of them. You know who he took with him? Pete Hegseth.”
According to the Post, the president was accompanied by his regular companion Natalie Harp, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, and Hegseth aboard the small aircraft that flew him out of the Turkish capital, Ankara, last month.
Meanwhile, top officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House aide Stephen Miller were left behind with members of the press aboard Air Force One, which could potentially have been targeted.
As for why Hegseth, 46, was one of the top officials chosen to accompany his boss on the smaller plane, Maher said, “Pete was the perfect roommate.”
“Trump was in with the snacks, and Pete was in with the complimentary beer and wine,” the host said.
Commenters online have mocked Trump’s well-hidden escape aboard the catering truck, with Ron Filipkowski, editor-in-chief of the news outlet MeidasTouch, sharing an AI-generated image of Trump crouched inside a truck with various McDonald’s menu items scattered around him.
The president is well known for his love of McDonald’s, and it was revealed in the bestselling book by White House correspondents Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, that he is also a late-night snacker.
“The president would frequently leave an array of empty potato chip bags, Starbucks wrappers, and ice cream cartons in the trash or on the floor,” the authors wrote.
![Ron Filipkowski on X [AI-generated]](https://www.thedailybeast.com/resizer/v2/XROQP5HDJRHABKJW32QGG3GTPA.png?auth=c23ddc727242dd74468b91c4cb9c6a2e2e69ad173426781d46c731d504a7ec0b&width=800&height=708)
Hegseth, on the other hand, has a history of drinking, with several of his former Fox News colleagues sharing concerns about his binge-drinking habits ahead of his confirmation as defense secretary.
In December 2024, Hegseth allegedly vowed to stop drinking if confirmed as defense secretary. The Senate confirmed him in January last year, though it is unclear whether he kept that promise.
Unlike Hegseth, who joined the president on the smaller plane, Rubio, 55, reportedly remained aboard Air Force One despite being briefed by the CIA about Israeli intelligence warning that the aircraft could be targeted by a missile.
Ultimately, the elaborate ruse worked: No one realized the president wasn’t aboard Air Force One until the Washington Post reported it this week. Both aircraft landed safely, and Trump is now using the bizarre episode to argue that his White House ballroom and its underground military complex are “absolutely required” for security reasons.
“He can pull this off, but he can’t clean a pool?” Maher asked, referencing the president’s $16 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which was plagued by peeling paint and an algae bloom that turned the water green. The pool was later drained amid the controversy.
The Daily Beast reached out to the White House for comment.
