Following a request from the Americans, Mossad intelligence confirmed the Iranian plan to target Trump and others, a plot validated by a Western intelligence agency.
Israel Hayom reported on Saturday that President Trump’s public appearances have been curtailed, while more US officials have been moved to secure facilities.
Intelligence warns about the possibility of attacks using explosive-laden drones, a method an adversary might deploy to circumvent conventional protective security measures.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and the nearby Donald J. Trump International Airport in Palm Beach, Florida, currently have surface-to-air missile and counter-drone systems.
Tehran’s increased threat has been linked to President Trump’s new directive to Vice President JD Vance, who leads US talks with Iran, to focus “his total attention” on corruption and crime in Democratic-run US cities.
“We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed,” Trump declared. “We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait (of Hormuz).”
The US and Israel are maintaining close ties and coordination on Iran, whose officials remain defiant amid potential resumption of the war after weeks of a relative ceasefire.
Mossad Director Roman Gofman is in Washington, D.C., where he has met with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, among others.
Trump administration officials who had been living on military bases include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
Attorney General Todd Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are the latest cabinet members to have moved out of their homes and into military housing this week.
The State Department recently reduced its personnel in the Gulf area after a memo by the Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton indicated “substantially increased” risks against Americans.
Iran, meanwhile, has accused the US of pushing “a new deceptive narrative” to evade responsibility for the catastrophic human, economic, and geopolitical consequences of their unlawful aggression against Iran.
Over the weekend, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei referenced a quote: “America did not start the war with Iran; the Iranians started it with the 1979 Revolution!”
Baghaei said if the Americans are referring to the historical roots of the conflict when they speak of who started the hostilities, “they should turn the pages of history further back to the August 1953 CIA-backed coup.”
“Now that the US administration has run into a military and political dead end, it is trying both to deny responsibility for starting the war and to conceal its failure to achieve its objectives behind a narrative of victory,” he wrote.
