Gop Wants Trump To Get Serious On Iran’s Hitmen. They’re Making Compromises To Break Through.

A growing number of Republicans are alarmed by President Donald Trump’s decision to yank security details from his former national security aides, especially following recent briefings that Iran-backed threats against them are unabated. Their problem now is how to get that message across to Trump.

The matter came up at a Senate GOP policy lunch on Tuesday, where multiple senators agreed Trump’s decision was ill-advised and would hurt U.S. national security long term — but couldn’t settle on a plan to change his mind, according to two attendees in the room. The people, like others in this story, were granted anonymity to share details of congressional discussions.

The main challenge, according to two senior GOP congressional aides and a former Trump administration official familiar with the discussions, is that Republicans fear Trump will dig in his heels if they confront him too aggressively with their concern about the officials — especially since Trump has feuded publicly with two of them.

“If a Republican gave a press conference right now and came out guns blazing on the president, that’s not going to work,” said the first senior GOP Senate aide. “Obviously, you have to do this delicately to get it done.”

Through his first two weeks in office, Trump has taken away security details from four former aides who the U.S. intelligence community believes Tehran wants to assassinate. Others who have been assigned security details due to the Iranian threat could be at risk for the same.

The threats largely stem from Trump’s 2020 killing of the powerful Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, a move that both weakened and enraged Tehran, leading it to seek retaliatory assassinations against Trump and roughly a dozen senior U.S. officials connected to the decision. Trump himself was the target of a foiled Iranian plot this summer.

But changing Trump’s mind poses an especially difficult challenge for Republicans because the president has deep personal rifts with two of the aides who have had their details pulled: his former national security adviser, John Bolton, and retired Gen. Mark Milley, the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trump has also feuded with his former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who for now still has his security detail.

Republicans therefore are playing up the cases of the two aides they insist were always loyal to Trump — former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Brian Hook, who was the State Department’s special representative for Iran — though all four former Trump officials have been left equally exposed to Iran-backed assassins.

“It’s, how do you lead a horse to water on some of these issues that are going to have down-the road consequence,” said the second senior GOP congressional aide, in reference to trying to change Trump’s mind. “This is about real threats against Americans who carried out Trump’s orders.”

Another major worry for Republicans is that Trump’s decision will send a troubling message to national security officials in his own administration — potentially cowing them against implementing hardline policies abroad. “If current and future officials worry the government won’t have their back, it could have a chilling effect on the advice they give the President or their willingness to execute lawful orders,” said a third senior Republican Senate aide.

Bolton, Pompeo and Hook were informed they were losing their government-backed security details last week. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revoked Milley’s personal protective detail Tuesday.

The moves set off alarm bells for Republicans on the Hill because those details were viewed as a critical fail-safe against Iranian operatives inside the United States. The details in some cases comprise roughly two dozen government security personnel, who have access to a steady stream of U.S. intelligence about Iranian plans, intentions and plotting.

Lawmakers and Congressional staff briefed on the issue in recent days have seen no evidence the officials are no longer in danger from Tehran.

“There’s little, if basically no, reason to think the threats have gone away,” said the first senior GOP Senate aide.

The Republican chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who arranged one of the briefings last week, and Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) are two of the only lawmakers to publicly call on Trump to reinstate details for all officials under credible threat from Iran. They both made cable news appearances this weekend — though they avoided direct criticism of the president, and largely avoided naming names on the officials.

Asked about how they thought that message could best be conveyed to Trump, the third senior GOP Senate aide pointed to Cotton’s cable news appearance last weekend: “Senator Cotton handled it perfectly as the messenger, the message itself (carefully but seriously worded), and the venue itself (FOX News Sunday),” the person wrote in an email.

Though Hook was recently fired from the State Department’s transition team, and Trump announced on social media this November he would not allow Pompeo in his new administration, neither has publicly broken with Trump.

By contrast, Trump has accused Bolton, whom he fired in his first term and recently signaled him out in an executive order, of leaking sensitive national security information in a memoir. Trump has suggested Milley, who angered him in part by apologizing for his role in clearing protesters outside the White House in 2020, committed treason.

Bolton and Milley “are likely a losing fight,” the first GOP Senate aide conceded when asked why their names were brought up less often by Republicans concerned about Trump’s move.

In an interview, Bolton said he was hoping to have his detail reinstated but insisted he has not spoken to anyone on the Hill about it. He also expressed frustration some thought Trump’s actions on Hook and Pompeo were particularly alarming.

“That is a problem right there,” Bolton said. “It’s okay if you remove protection from somebody who’s been critical [of Trump], but, my goodness, to remove protection from somebody who’s not been critical — I think what it shows is you can’t kiss Donald Trump’s ring enough.”

Milley, Hook and Pompeo did not respond to a request for comment. Esper did not respond to a request for comment about whether he still had his security detail.

Last week, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that former officials cannot expect to get security protection for life.

Asked whether Trump was considering revising his decision on the four officials, or if he was willing to provide further explanation for it, National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes said Iran should know it would face “devastating consequences” if it ever attacked an American while Trump is in office.

Congressional aides familiar with the Iran threat aren’t nearly as confident in that assessment.

That “assumes that the folks who run things in Tehran have 100 percent control over their proxies,” said another senior congressional aide briefed on the Iran threat. “They almost certainly don’t.”

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.