Israel warned the U.S. about an Iranian plot to assassinate President Donald Trump on his flight back from last month’s NATO Summit in Turkey, The Wall Street Journal confirmed, quoting a U.S. official. President Trump eluded the Iranian assassins by secretly switching to a smaller C-32A military aircraft after appearing to board Air Force One in front of the press.
The attempt on the president’s life was to take place on July 8, a day before Ayatollah Khamenei’s burial in Iran.
In my post yesterday, I also concluded that the “timing of the incident suggests that Israel may have alerted the U.S. to the Iranian threat.” On July 10, we reported that Israeli intelligence had warned of an Iranian plot to assassinate President Trump.
The WSJ revealed on Tuesday:
President Trump was secretly flown out of Turkey last month on a military jet after the U.S. government was told of an Iranian threat against the president and Air Force One, according to a U.S. official and another person briefed on the matter.The U.S. official said Israel briefed the Trump administration on the intelligence, which included a threat to use shoulder-to-air missiles to target Air Force One. Some of the president’s top aides stayed on Air Force One, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the official said.
The Washington Post broke the story on Monday, stating that President Trump was forced to take a secret flight home after credible intelligence revealed an Iranian plot to shoot down Air Force One.
“An Iranian assassination threat against President Donald Trump prompted an extraordinary operation last month in which he flew secretly from Turkey on an alternate military aircraft while the White House said he was aboard Air Force One,” the daily reported. “The maneuver meant that Trump’s actual location was concealed from the American public and many senior U.S. officials for hours.”
President Trump, on Tuesday evening, confirmed that Iran tried to target Air Force One. “I think actually the plane that I flew on was at greater risk,” he told reporters. “I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plane I think that we — that they would be more likely to go for.”
President Trump has been in the crosshairs of Iran since he first took office. Iran’s slain Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, first called for his assassination after a U.S. drone strike in early 2020 eliminated the wanted Iranian terrorist Qassem Soleimani.
U.S. law enforcement foiled a 2024 plot by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to assassinate President Trump on American soil. In 2025, Iran issued a fatwa, or an Islamic edict, calling for the killing of President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. The fatwa declared the president an “enemy of Allah” and offered rewards in the afterlife to his would-be assassins.
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