Israel Warns U.S. of New Iranian Plot to Assassinate Trump

Here's the deal: Israel reportedly told the U.S. this week that Iran has cooked up a new, specific plan to try to kill President Trump. The tip came from The Wall Street Journal, and it's since been confirmed by multiple outlets, including Fox News. According to Fox's writeup, Israel shared intelligence with the U.S. indicating Iran developed a new plan to assassinate Trump.

Trump himself addressed it head-on at a press conference in Turkey, saying bluntly, "They want to take out the U.S. leader — me. I'm on whatever list. I saw this morning I'm on every single one of their lists." He went on to call the people behind these threats "evil, sick people" and said "These are evil, sick people. And we have to root out that cancer. That cancer."

Why now? This isn't coming out of nowhere. It's tied to years of bad blood — Iran has publicly vowed for years to retaliate against Trump over the U.S. operation that killed Soleimani, the former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, in Baghdad in January 2020. That anger boiled over again recently: at the funeral for Iran's Supreme Leader (who was killed at the start of the current war), Iranian mourners at the funeral for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei chanted for Trump's death and displayed a banner that said, "We Will Kill Trump."

There's also a diplomatic subplot here worth knowing. Trump and Israeli PM Netanyahu haven't exactly been on the same page lately — the Journal reported the intelligence surfaced as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have diverged in recent weeks over how to proceed after last month's conflict with Iran, with Netanyahu advocating for continuing military pressure on Tehran, while Trump has sought to preserve a fragile ceasefire after U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. Despite the tension, the two leaders talked it out Thursday and agreed to continue coordination between the two countries, according to a statement from Netanyahu's office.

Other reporting fills in some gaps Fox's piece doesn't cover. CNN, citing its own sources, notes that Other American officials suggested the Israeli report could be an effort to sway Trump's decision-making as he weighs whether to intensify American military action against Iran. CNN also reports that the details of the plot that Israel warned about were not immediately clear, and two sources familiar with the matter said the US had not vetted it themselves nor were they tracking it before the Israeli warning. The Times of Israel adds that Israeli TV network Channel 12 got a different characterization from U.S. officials — that the information related to general dialogue between Iranian officials on potentially assassinating the US president, rather than a specific plot.

Why should you care? Beyond the obvious — an attack on a sitting president is a huge deal — this story is really a window into how fragile and dangerous the current U.S.-Iran standoff has become, with real strikes happening and a shaky ceasefire barely holding. It also shows how intelligence from allies can get tangled up with politics, since even U.S. officials aren't fully sure how to weigh what Israel is telling them.