Donald Trump’s campaign requested military aircraft for Trump to fly in during the final weeks of the campaign, expanded flight restrictions over his residences and rallies, ballistic glass pre-positioned in seven battleground states for the campaign’s use along with an array of military vehicles to transport Trump.
The requests are extraordinary and unprecedented — no nominee in recent history has been ferried around in military planes ahead of an election that is especially difficult to determine what factually challenged statements should be examined because he frequently says so many things that are false or misleading.
But the requests came after Trump’s campaign advisers received briefings in which the government said Iran is still actively plotting to kill him, according to published reports and the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions.
The Republican presidential nominee has delivered a barrage of hurricane-related dishonesty, distortions, and lies about the federal response to major storms while the Republican Party’s obscene advertising expresses a lot of anti-transgender sentiments but some experts say voters may not respond in the way the GOP is hoping they will.
During his only presidential debate with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, Trump repeated a baseless claim that illegal immigrants from Haiti have been eating domestic pets in a small Ohio city saying: “In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there.”
During his term as President of the United States, Washington Post fact-checkers documented 30,573 false or misleading claims made by Trump. Commentators and fact-checkers described the scale of Trump’s mendacity as “unprecedented” in American politics, and they say the consistency of lies is a distinctive part of his business and political identities.
More than one 1.3 million Americans died from the coronavirus but each one Trump’s deceptions—the lie that the virus was equivalent to the flu; the lie that the situation was “totally under control”; the lie that the virus was “disappearing” —suggested that Americans didn’t have to change their usual behavior.
On June 8, 2023, a grand jury indicted Trump on one count of making “false statements and representations”, specifically by hiding subpoenaed classified documents from his own attorney who was trying to find and return them to the government.
In August 2023, 21 of Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election were listed in his Washington, D.C. indictment, while 27 lies were listed in the indictment against him handed down by a state grand jury in Georgia.
Trump repeatedly labeled President Joe Biden as “corrupt” — but he applied the same charge to MSNBC, the 2020 elections, the judge in the libel case Trump lost, the judge in a business fraud case Trump lost, the prosecutor in a pending Georgia case, New York state and even the entire United States.
“We have a very corrupt country,” he declared during a 30-second rant that touched on allegations that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help him win, his first impeachment over blocking aid to Ukraine, Hunter Biden’s laptop, his firing of FBI director James B. Comey and unproven allegations that Pfizer forged informed consent signatures for clinical trials of the coronavirus vaccine.
Excerpts from Watergate journalist Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book War accused Trump of gifting Vladimir Putin a “bunch of Abbott Point of Care COVID test machines for his personal use” at the height of the pandemic, and of holding as many as seven “private” calls with the Russian president after leaving office. Trump’s campaign has explicitly denied all of Woodward’s reporting, but Putin’s Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia had indeed received COVID tests from Trump.
Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times, reported on Trump’s second rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — the site of the first assassination attempt he survived thanks to a fortuitous head turn — describing it as “a religious event as much as a campaign rally” based on conversations with many people who were at the first rally, and others who were the “pilgrimage people” — coming in from California, North Carolina and more.
In their requests for unprecedented military protection, Trump advisers claim they are concerned about drones and missiles, based on the hostility attracted from his decision to order the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.
In emails sent over the past two weeks from campaign manager Susie Wiles to Ronald L. Rowe Jr., the head of the Secret Service, Trump’s campaign expressed displeasure with the protection afforded to the disgraced former president and claimed the GOP nominee had to cancel a public event at the last minute because of a “lack of personnel” from the Secret Service — instead only putting Trump in a small room with reporters.
Wiles said Trump’s campaign is being hampered in its planning because of threats and expects to hold far more events in the final weeks of the campaign.
She also wrote that the U.S. government has not been able to provide what the campaign views as an extensive enough plan to protect Trump.
Florida Rep. Michael Waltz, a Trump ally who is on the House Intelligence Committee and the Butler assassination inquiry, wrote a letter to the Secret Service asking for military aircraft or additional protection for the Republican candidate’s private plane.
Secret Service officials did not answer specific questions about the discussions with the Trump campaign, but spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement that Trump is receiving “the highest levels of protection.”
In a letter to the campaign, Rowe said the government is assessing what can be provided.
“Assistance from the Department of Defense is regularly provided for the former president’s protection, to include explosive ordnance disposal, canine units, and airlift transportation,” Guglielmi said.
The Secret Service is also imposing temporary flight restrictions “over the former president’s residence and when he travels,” Guglielmi said. “Additionally, the former president is receiving the highest level of technical security assets which include unmanned aerial vehicles, counter unmanned aerial surveillance systems, ballistics and other advanced technology systems.”
Former White House national security adviser John Bolton warned that Trump would probably withdraw from NATO if he is returned to the White House in November.
“For Republicans who believe that Trump will be OK in a second term — that he won‘t ditch support for Ukraine, that he won‘t withdraw from NATO, that he won‘t interpret the treaty of Washington in a way that makes it wholly useless, … go ahead and vote for Trump if you want, but for goodness stakes do it with your eyes open,” Bolton said. “The odds that he will withdraw from NATO are very high.”
Senior U.S. officials said it was unlikely the Trump campaign would be provided military planes based on the current intelligence.
One official said the other requests are being considered, but there are limitations on how many places the Secret Service can have bullet-resistant glass positioned at one time, and that glass is already being provided for his rallies.
“We are doing everything we can do to take on the threats that are actionable and real,” the official said.
The official said the U.S. government was frustrated by the Trump campaign releasing statements that they felt politicized the briefings the campaign was given on Iran.
The requests were first reported Friday by the New York Times.
Former U.S. officials said they were unaware of any presidential nominee getting a military jet. One person who has served under multiple Republican administrations in senior roles said it would be “extraordinary” for the Secret Service to grant such a request.
Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, receives protection from the U.S. Marines and flies on Air Force Two, which is a military airplane, because she is currently a government official.
The Republican nominee has already started traveling with additional planes, and officials are also taking the precaution of dividing his motorcade at times and putting Trump in nondescript planes that do not have his name on the side instead of his longtime 757 jet.
The requests escalate a months-long battle between Trump’s team and the Secret Service, which has heightened after two assassination attempts on the former president. Granting such requests for a presidential candidate would be unprecedented, particularly a military plane to transport Trump. If the administration granted such assets, it would give Trump a distinct look in the final months that no challenger has ever had — and would remind voters visually, every day, that he is under threat.
Trump and his team have grown frustrated with the Secret Service in recent months, even as they praise Trump’s own security detail. The Secret Service has repeatedly escalated Trump’s security, but not to levels the campaign wants, the people said.
There is no evidence tying Iran to either of the recent assassination attempts, the people said, but the FBI has not ruled out the possibility of a connection. U.S. spies have determined that Iran’s leaders are seeking to take revenge on U.S. officials including Trump whom they hold responsible for a strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani in 2020, but Iran’s ability to strike within the United States is limited, according to people briefed on the intelligence.
The FBI declined to comment on ongoing investigations.
Trump has asked campaign advisers and U.S. government officials repeatedly whether Iran was behind the two gunmen who separately attempted to assassinate him on July 13 in Butler, Pa., and on Sept. 15 at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Fla., according to people familiar with the briefing.
Several of Trump’s advisers have been claiming without evidence that Iran was behind those attempted assassinations.
In June, undercover FBI agents met with a Pakistani man in Brooklyn who was seeking to hire hit men to assassinate an American politician on Iran’s behalf, according to charges unsealed in August. The foiled plot prompted national security officials to alert the Secret Service about unspecified Iranian threats to Trump. Authorities arrested the Pakistani man, Asif Merchant, 46, on July 12, the day before Trump’s Butler rally.
Investigators have not established a motive for the Butler shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, who opened fire from a nearby roof, grazing Trump’s ear and killing one rallygoer before he was killed at the scene by a Secret Service countersniper. Crooks was a registered Republican, made a small donation to a liberal PAC, researched past assassinations and had photos of Trump and President Joe Biden on his phone.
People briefed on the Butler investigation said there is no evidence pointing to foreign ties.
Officials have warned that China, Russia and Cuba are making a concerted effort to target congressional races in the U.S., using tactics similar to those seen in bids to influence the presidential election.
Intelligence agencies offer defensive briefings when they believe a foreign country has tried to interfere with a campaign or candidate — including when Iran hacked the Trump campaign over the summer.
While officials won’t disclose who the briefings were provided to, the spike shows the growth in efforts targeting the U.S. election.
“Moscow is leveraging a wide range of influence actors to influence congressional races, particularly to encourage the U.S. public to oppose pro-Ukraine policies and politicians. Russian influence actors have planned and likely created and disseminated content, particularly over social media, intended to encourage the election of congressional candidates Moscow assesses will oppose aid to Ukraine,” an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told reporters Monday.
China has similarly been seeking to influence elections based on candidates’ positions on Taiwan, which China considers to be one of its territories.
Intelligence officials said Cuba “almost certainly has considered influence operations targeting some candidates,” adding the country will likely try to “curry favor” with various politicians.
“Havana is very focused on a handful of policy issues that it believes to be negatively impacting the regime. This includes the U.S. embargo on Cuba and other economic and travel restrictions, all of which Havana perceives as an effort to force regime change. Havana considers election influence activities as part of its standing requirements to influence those policies, and Florida is a prime target of their activities,” the official said.