Israel shared intel on Iranian hardliners' desire to target Trump, sources say

Israel shared intel on Iranian hardliners' desire to target Trump, sources say, as Netanyahu looks to influence course of war. The Israeli intelligence shared with the Trump administration of Iranian threats to assassinate President Donald Trump reflected a desire among elements of Tehran's hardline leadership to target the American leader, according to an Israeli source and a US official, rather than a specific, detailed plan to carry out such an operation. Two US sources familiar with the matter said recent US intelligence assessments show no indication of a new, specific Iranian plot to kill Trump, but rather a steady drumbeat of chatter about various Iranian actors wanting to do so. In a Friday interview with the New York Post Trump downplayed the significance of the Israeli intelligence, first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, saying that Iran had long threatened his life. "Israel came up with nothing," he said, describing himself as Iran's "number one" target "for a long time." US intelligence officials are broadly aware that Israel feels cut out of the decision-making process and is ramping up efforts to influence the Trump administration's thinking on Iran. That includes how Israeli officials framed the intelligence revealed in recent reporting of the claimed new plot to assassinate Trump, the sources said. The sources said there is a measure of skepticism within the US intelligence community about information provided by Israel because of that perception of the desire to impact Trump's decision making. While US intelligence officials have been concerned that multiple Iranian actors might want to try to assassinate Trump, they have assessed that Iranians either have not been able to develop a plan or have not received approval from Iranian decision-makers to carry out a specific plot, the source added.