How Trump's Security Team Outsmarted Iranian Kill Plots in 2024

Donald Trump's team resorted to Cold War-style deception tactics - including deploying a decoy aircraft - amid harrowing warnings that Iranian killers armed with surface-to-air missiles were hunting the president elect on US soil.

The chilling security measures, revealed in Alex Isenstadt's upcoming book "Revenge," expose how a September assassination attempt at Trump's West Palm Beach golf course pushed his protective detail to breaking point. Their solution? Loading campaign staff onto the highly visible Trump Force One while secretly whisking their principal away on supporter Steve Witkoff's jet.

The audacious switch left Trump's own aides in the dark until takeoff, when they found themselves potentially serving as unwitting decoys on what became grimly nicknamed "The Ghost Flight." Campaign chiefs split themselves between aircraft - Susie Wiles with Trump, Chris LaCivita with the staff - while stunned workers grappled with their possible role as "collateral damage."

The threats kept coming. Secret Service scrambled to react when intelligence suggested Trump's motorcade faced armed attackers after a Long Island rally. Days later in Pennsylvania, agents had to shoot down a menacing drone tailing Trump's convoy using an electromagnetic weapon.

Behind his public bravado about killing Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020, Trump's private fears emerged. He scaled back mentions of the assassination at rallies and fretted about security at events. More tellingly, he worried Americans would tire of a president requiring constant protection from killers.

Just last week, echoes of these tensions resurfaced when Trump declared Iran would face "obliteration" if it succeeded in killing him - though he later pivoted to calling for a nuclear deal.

The revelations in Isenstadt's March 18 book strip away the facade, exposing the raw nerves and real dangers as Iran's revenge plot forced America's former president to literally flee his own plane.

Axios contributed to this article.