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Israel’s Mossad has told the CIA that Iran intends to target U.S. President Donald Trump and senior members of his administration, including with explosive-laden drones, senior Israeli and American officials told the newspaper Israel Hayom.
The warning has prompted tighter security around top US figures and, the officials said, helped push prospects for a deal with Tehran further out of reach.
The officials said another Western intelligence agency also corroborated the Mossad’s information. Israel verified the intelligence at the request of the Americans, after US agencies asked the Mossad to check it.
Mossad Director Roman Gofman is visiting the United States and has met, among others, CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Gofman has traveled to the US often since taking office, keeping close coordination with his American counterparts.
One senior official said Washington already knew of Iranian threats against the lives of senior administration officials, particularly after the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, at the start of the joint Israeli and US offensive. The new intelligence, the official said, points to specific and recent threats, among them attacks with explosive-laden drones, a method that is hard to counter with conventional protective measures.
Officials considered at risk have sharply reduced their appearances at outdoor events, and several have been temporarily moved out of their homes into secure facilities. Fox News reported that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who oversees sanctions on Iran, was moved from his home in Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood to a secure military base.
The network said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a staunch opponent of an agreement with Iran, had also been relocated to secure housing on a military base, and that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is staying at a secure military facility.
For the president, officials said special protective measures now apply to public appearances, some of which were held outdoors ahead of the midterm elections. Those events have been sharply curtailed. When they do take place, they are backed by reinforced conventional protection and specialized systems meant to neutralize drones.
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The officials said Iran’s reported intentions were among the main reasons for Trump’s recent change of course on negotiations, which had been built around the memorandum of understanding reached in May. Iran has shown some flexibility on the nuclear issue, they said, but refuses substantive talks until the naval blockade and a substantial portion of the sanctions are lifted and frozen Iranian assets are released.
Trump has also removed Vice President JD Vance from the negotiations. Vance had been pushing for an agreement. In a statement published Thursday, Trump said he had asked Vance to give “his complete and total attention” to what he called widespread corruption and crime in Democratic-run cities and states.
“We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed,” Trump wrote, adding that the United States has Iran’s money, “Hundreds of Billions of Dollars,” and “their Strait,” a reference to the Strait of Hormuz. He said Vance’s work on corruption in Democratic-run states would save the country more money than an agreement with Tehran.
The statement followed reports a day earlier that Vance had tried to arrange a direct meeting with senior Iranian officials to end the war. Vance had said publicly that the fighting with Iran was one of the main reasons Republicans lost the midterm elections.
It remains unclear what Trump will decide for the next phase of the confrontation. The economic campaign appears set to widen, with efforts now aimed at shutting import and export routes through land border crossings, particularly those linking Iran to Iraq and Türkiye.
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