President Trump's team was so concerned about an Iranian plot to assassinate him that they used a decoy plane at one point, according to a new book about Trump's remarkable return to the White House.
In the wake of a second assassination attempt at Trump's golf course, his campaign had him abandon his personal jet for a lookalike, Axios reporter Alex Isenstadt writes in a new book.
Trump survived two separate assassination attempts during his re-election campaign, with a gunman bloodying Trump in the ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania just weeks before another man tried to shoot Trump at his Florida golf course.
The campaign's concerns were heightened by a warning that Iran had smuggled operatives with surface-to-air missiles into the United States.
Shortly after the second attempt on Trump's life on September 15, Trump and his co-campaign manager, Susie Wiles - now his chief of staff - flew to an event on a decoy plane owned by Trump's friend Steve Witkoff, who is now Trump's envoy to the Middle East.
Others on Trump's team, including co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita, rode on Trump's personal jet Trump Force One. The details were shared by Alex Isenstadt in an article teasing his upcoming book Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power.
"The boss ain't riding with us today," LaCivita told staffers. "We had to put him into another plane. This is nothing but a sort of test for how things may happen in the future."
The precautions led to "gallows humor" and fears of becoming "collateral damage" among those on Trump Force One, which was labelled "the Ghost Flight."
The Secret Service also coordinated a decoy motorcade that day, with Trump riding in one and staffers in another.
The Secret Service also warned after a September 18 rally on Long Island that someone might try to shoot Trump's motorcade. The Long Island rally was held just days after a crazed gunman targeted Trump at his West Palm Beach golf course.
"Don't f**king hang out the window and take photos, because you're a f**king target," LaCivita joked to Trump aide Dan Scavino.
During a trip to Pennsylvania the next week, Secret Service agents noticed a drone following Trump's motorcade and disabled it with an electromagnetic gun, Axios reported.
The Iranian regime has long wanted revenge for Trump's decision to kill top general Qassem Soleimani in 2020. President Trump has signaled a return to the "maximum pressure" policy of his first term, warning Iran last week that he has given orders to "obliterate" the country if its leaders ever try to kill him.
At the same time, Trump has called for renewed diplomatic efforts to halt Iran's nuclear program - saying he would rather strike a deal than "bomb the hell" out of the country.
