Opinion | Trump courts disaster by underestimating Iranian death threats

U.S. security officials fear the former president is taking unnecessary risks.


Secret Service agents usher a wounded Donald Trump offstage after shots were fired at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

By David Ignatius
October 4, 2024 at 7:26 p.m. EDT

Donald Trump has a flair for the dramatic, especially in the heat of a political campaign. But the former president faces what U.S. officials say is an “active threat” of assassination from Iran, and he needs to help an overstretched Secret Service protect him from what could be personal and national disaster.

The danger is real and immediate. Trump is heading Saturday to Butler, Pa., for an emotional replay of the rally at which he was nearly killed in July by Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old would-be assassin. It will be great campaign theater, but for a presidential candidate under threat, it’s an unwise and perhaps irresponsible decision.

Trump is promoting his appearance like it’s a wrestling rematch. “I’m going back to Butler because I feel I have an obligation to go back to Butler. We never finished what we were supposed to do,” he said this week in an interview with NewsNation. “I’m fulfilling a promise. I’m fulfilling, really, an obligation.” U.S. officials worry that visiting the site again could attract copycat assassins — in addition to the ongoing Iranian threat.

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Despite {a briefing Trump received on Sept. 24}, Trump decided four days later to attend a college-football game in Tuscaloosa, Ala. That decision placed a huge burden on the Secret Service, many of whose agents had just finished a grueling week protecting U.S. and foreign leaders at the annual gathering of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. … To shield Trump at the game, the Secret Service had to screen about 100,000 fans with magnetometers, according to knowledgeable officials. Hundreds of Secret Service agents were dispatched to the game, the officials said, along with hundreds of agents drafted from the Transportation Security Administration. Trump got to wave at the big crowd, but the cost of protecting him was huge.

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The Secret Service, for all its past mistakes, is trying to keep the former president safe. But it needs more help from Trump.

Opinion by David Ignatius
David Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. His latest novel is “Phantom Orbit.” follow on X @ignatiuspost