Trump campaign requests military protection, fearing ‘Iran threat’

In the final weeks of the election campaign, Donald Trump’s campaign has requested that the former president be protected by military aircraft, which is an unprecedented requirement for a candidate in the country.

The New York Times and Washington Post reported on Friday that many in Trump’s orbit have come to the conclusion that Iran may have been responsible for two recent assassination attempts against the former president, in addition to the expanded flight restrictions on Trump’s residences, rallies, and an array of military vehicles to transport him around.

In recent years, no presidential candidate has used military aircraft to campaign before an election. Because she is the vice president in charge, Kamala Harris is protected by the military and flies on Air Force Two, a military aircraft.

Iran threat

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned Trump about the “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him in an effort to destabilize and sow chaos in the United States,” according to a statement from a Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung last month.

According to Cheung, “intelligence officials have determined that these ongoing and coordinated attacks have increased in recent months.”

Trump echoed the assertion on his Truth Social platform, saying that “moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again.”

Iran has not been linked to either of the two recent assassination attempts against the former president, despite the FBI’s alleged lack of evidence. General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020, when Trump was in office, according to US intelligence officials. According to officials, Iran has a limited ability to strike US territory.

The government requested military protection after Trump’s campaign advisers received information that claimed Iran is still actively plotting to kill him, according to The Washington Post, which cited emails and anonymous sources. According to the sources, drones and missiles have grown in concern for the advisers.

Secret Service failures

The Secret Service and Trump’s team have engaged in the most recent exchanges, with Trump receiving a few shots and getting slightly hurt at a rally in July that featured Trump being shot at and wounded.

Both the attacker in that instance, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was killed on the scene, and Ryan Routh, a gunman who was found in September allegedly pointing a rifle through a fence at a West Palm Beach, Florida golf course where Trump was playing, are believed to have acted alone.

Routh has entered a not-guilty plea after being accused of an assassination attempt.