Iran’s threat to assassinate Donald Trump during the 2024 campaign was far more serious than publicly known — and led to extraordinary precautions by his team that included using a decoy plane to avert a feared attempt on his life. Why it matters: My upcoming book, “Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power,” reveals the depth of U.S. authorities’ concerns about an Iranian attack on Trump — and how it impacted him.
• Iran clearly is still on Trump’s mind: Last week, he said he’d given his team instructions to “obliterate” Iran if its operatives were to kill him.
• He later tempered that remark by saying he wanted a “verified nuclear peace agreement” with Iran, which has targeted Trump since 2020, when as president he ordered an airstrike that killed Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian military leader.
Zoom in: For the book, which is set for release March 18, I was given extensive access to Trump’s inner circle during his campaign.
• Law enforcement officials warned Trump last year that Tehran had placed operatives in the U.S. with access to surface-to-air missiles.
• Trump’s team worried that the Iranians could try to down his easily recognizable personal jet — better known as “Trump Force One” — as it was taking off or landing.
• The concern intensified after a foiled assassination attempt of Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Sept. 15.
Iran hasn’t been linked to that incident or the shooting in Pennsylvania two months earlier, in which a bullet nicked Trump in the ear.
• But at one point soon after the Florida incident, Trump’s security detail was concerned enough about the Iran threat that it had Trump travel to an event on a decoy plan owned by Steve Witkoff. He’s a Trump friend and real estate executive who’s now Trump’s envoy to the Middle East.
• Much of Trump’s staff traveled on Trump Force One that day — infuriating some aides who worried they’d be “collateral damage” if the jet were shot down.
• Co-campaign managers Susie Wiles — now White House chief of staff — and Chris LaCivita decided to split up. Wiles traveled on Witkoff’s plane with Trump while LaCivita joined staffers on Trump Force One.
Many aides on Trump’s jet didn’t learn about the hush-hush plan until just before takeoff, when they realized Trump’s window seat was empty.
• “The boss ain’t riding with us today,” LaCivita told the group. “We had to put him into another plane. This is nothing but a sort of test for how things may happen in the future.”
• Campaign leaders tried to assure Trump aides they weren’t being used as bait. But if Iranian operatives had access to surface-to-air missiles, several aides wondered, why were they put on board?
• The flight was a surreal experience, with “gallows humor galore,” three aides later told me. “This was some serious sh*t,” they said those onboard realized.
Within the campaign, the ride on Trump’s jet that day would become known as the “Ghost Flight.”
• The Secret Service also organized a decoy motorcade that day, with Trump in one and staffers in another.
There were other scares for Trump’s campaign.
• The Secret Service warned campaign leaders after a Sept. 18 rally on Long Island, N.Y., that they had intelligence that someone might be looking to shoot up his motorcade.
• “Don’t f**king hang out the window and take photos, because you’re a f**king target,” LaCivita darkly joked to Trump social media guru Dan Scavino. Wiles reclined her seat back.
• During a trip to Pennsylvania the next week, Secret Service agents noticed a drone following Trump’s motorcade. Officers in one of the cars opened up the moonroof and shot it with an electromagnetic gun, disabling it.
Campaign insiders told me that Trump was more worried about the Iran threat than he publicly let on.
• Trump often had boasted at rallies about his killing of Soleimani. But as the Iranian threat intensified, staffers noticed that he talked about it less. And privately, he began expressing more concern about the staging of his events.
• He also worried voters would get “assassination fatigue.” Would Americans, he wondered, want to go through four years of their president being under threat?
Preorder Alex Isenstadt’s book, “Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power,” out March 18.