HUNT VALLEY, Md. (TNND) — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded a briefing Tuesday on the alleged Iranian threats that prompted President Donald Trump to deceive the public by secretly switching planes last month.
The Washington Post reported Monday that Trump hid in a catering truck to board a plane after entering a different one in Turkey, the Middle Eastern country that shares a border with Iran and which hosted the July NATO summit attended by the president and other allied leaders. Trump confirmed Tuesday he changed planes but didn’t explain the threat he said prompted the covert action.
“The Senate should be immediately briefed on the Iranian threats against the President, the extraordinary measures taken to get him out of Turkey, any risks posed to U.S. personnel, and any threat to the homeland,” Schumer said in a statement. “It is unacceptable that Congress was kept in the dark and instead learned about this serious threat through press reports.”
Trump told reporters Tuesday night he receives a lot of threats but appeared to know little about the one allegedly from Iran, whose leadership was killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes earlier this year. The National News Desk requested comment from the White House and Secret Service but hasn’t received any response.
“I guess there was a threat out there,” the president said. “I didn’t really ask too much about it. I get a lot of threats.”
Trump’s relationships with Iran’s leaders have stayed cold for much of this year as the two states struggle to reach common ground in talks to end the five-and-a-half-month war. The commander in chief often shifts between threats against Tehran and attempts to strike a more conciliatory tone with the country holding a critical oil trade route in a chokehold.
“The U.S.A. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post earlier this month. “Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to.”
“Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL,” he added.
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