Alex Eisenstadt
Appearances
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
My name is Alex Eisenstadt. I'm a senior political reporter at Axios, and I'm the author of Revenge, the Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power, which is an inside look at Trump's 2024 campaign.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
So the nuclear deal that President Obama signed on to was something that was a huge priority for Obama and his administration.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
It basically decreased economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for having more oversight of Iran's nuclear capabilities.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
And basically Trump increased economic sanctions on Iran as a means of putting maximum pressure on the country.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
There was a sense that Trump's move wasn't necessarily needed and that he was guided by Iran hawks within his administration, people like Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, both of whom were advocates of a much stricter approach towards Iran.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
So Trump ordered the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, who basically is the second most important leader in Iran next to the Ayatollah. And what it did was it highlighted Trump's desire to take a very aggressive posture towards Iran. And if you remember, in the immediate aftermath, there was actually concern in the United States that there might be some retaliatory action that Iran could take.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
In fact, it did. It launched a strike on U.S. interests in Iraq.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
But at the time, it was something that was really surprising to people.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
This was something that was picked up within the confines of US intelligence and the Secret Service that they were aware of that they wanted to kill Trump in retaliation for Soleimani. And this is something that was an issue as soon as Trump left the White House, went back to his home in Palm Beach, Florida, basically.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
And so as the campaign continued into 2024, the threat of Iran was something that became really intense. And Trump's campaign was attacked by Iranian hackers. And at the same time, there was an increasing threat that Iran would try to kill him.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
And in the summer of 2024, Secret Service agents sat down with Trump and they warned him that Iran had teams of agents within the United States that had access to surface-to-air missiles. that those surface-to-air missiles could be used to, conceivably, down his plane, either upon takeoff or upon landing. Do we know how Trump responded to this?
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
His campaign devised at one point a plan, which was to have Trump fly in a plane of a donor by the name of Steve Witkoff, who, of course, is now ironically playing an incredibly important role in terms of U.S. foreign policy overseas, including overseeing negotiations with Iran.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
And so Steve Witkoff has a G6 Gulfstream jet. And so Trump and his top aides devised a plan where Trump would be on the plane of Steve Witkoff, and then other aides would be on Trump Force One, which the so-called Trump Force One, which is the plane that Trump typically used. And the idea was to essentially turn Trump Force One into a decoy plane.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
Well, this is something that did not sit well, as you can imagine, among Trump aides who were on the plane that day. And so they got on the plane. They got on the plane that day and all of them were wondering, where is Trump, right? And then a senior member of leadership tells them, look, the boss isn't going to be flying with us today.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
He's on another plane, and this is just a practice dry run for how things are going to go in the future. This did not go over well with the aides. They felt like they were being treated as bait. And at the time, they were really concerned about the threat of Iran, that they could be attacked as well.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
In fact, there was one aide who was told by a Secret Service agent at one point that upon getting on the plane, that they should duck. They should duck their heads down out of fear that there might be an assassin somewhere pointing a rifle at them.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
What we do know is that there was someone connected to the Iranian regime who was arrested in connection for being a part of a plot to kill President Trump, who was then candidate Trump at the time. And so we do know that Iran was very interested in this. And we also know that Iran... did succeed in hacking into the campaign's computer system.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
And so in a lot of ways, Iran was very aggressive during the 2024 campaign season.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
You know, it's not something that they've talked about as much recently. Trump was in greater danger as a former president when you had less security protection. It was the threat to Trump and the vulnerabilities he faced really reached a kind of a climax in the summer of 2024 after the two assassination attempts.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
Trump was so afraid of Iran that on the campaign trail, he used to boast about his killing of Soleimani. He actually started talking about it less and less over the course of the campaign. The second thing that happened was he started to ask about the staging of events. And that was another thing he was thinking about.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
Susie Wiles, who was Trump's co-campaign manager at the time, now his chief of staff, was reaching out to the White House, then the Biden White House, asking for greater Secret Service assets. That's how great the concern was about Trump's safety at the time.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
Now that Trump's president and he has much more security assets behind him, there's a lot less concern about where he is from a safety standpoint. But that doesn't mean that they're not concerned about his safety at all points. That's always the concern about a president. But in the summer of 2024, it really reached its heights.