Israel's Mossad has handed the CIA intelligence that Iran is planning to assassinate President Trump and senior members of his administration, possibly with explosive-laden drones, senior Israeli and American officials told Israel Hayom on Saturday.
According to the paper, US intelligence agencies asked the Mossad to verify the material, and the Israeli service did. The officials told Israel Hayom that the threats have contributed to a sharp drop in recent days in the chances of even a preliminary US-Iran agreement, and are among the reasons Trump has hardened his line on Tehran.
Mossad head Roman Gofman (pictured next to Vice President JD Vance) has been in talks with CIA Director John Ratcliffe this past week in Washington
Trump has not made a public appearance since Wednesday, after a steady stream of rallies ahead of the midterms, the Daily Mail noted, though he kept posting on Truth Social through Saturday. Israel Hayom reported that his outdoor appearances have been cut back, with counter-drone systems added at the events he still attends.
Senior officials seen as potential targets have also been moved to secure facilities, according to the report. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the architect of the administration's economic war on Iran, was moved out of his Georgetown home and onto a military base after intelligence found the threats against him had reached an advanced stage, as we reported on Tuesday. Days earlier, an Iranian video had threatened to kill him, and on Thursday he tore into the Wall Street Journal for publishing a photo of his home.
Attorney General Todd Blanche, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are also living in military housing, according to the Daily Mail, which reported that a banner reading "We Will Kill Trump" went up over Tehran's Enqelab Square in early November.
The warning came as Mossad Director Roman Gofman spent the week in Washington, where he met CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Neither the CIA nor the White House has publicly confirmed the drone plot.
This is not the first time an Israeli tip about an Iranian plot against Trump has reshaped his movements. In July, Trump left the NATO summit in Ankara on a smaller military plane instead of Air Force One after Israel warned of an Iranian plot to hit the aircraft. A US official later told the Washington Post that the warning was "Israeli-derived, not US-generated, and viewed as low confidence," and CIA analysts did not find it compelling, as we noted in August.
Turkish officials went further, telling Middle East Eye they believed the Ankara warning was a ruse to derail diplomacy between Washington and Tehran and make Israel look like Trump's protector, as we reported. And former National Counterterrorism Center director Joe Kent said this month that the Iran threat intelligence he raised with Trump came from Israel.
The new warning lands just before Trump heads to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, where the White House has confirmed he will sit down with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in an unprecedented trilateral, and as Washington and Tehran remain far apart on a deal. By Israel Hayom's account, the Mossad's drone warning has become one more obstacle to any diplomatic breakthrough with Iran.