Trump says he wouldn’t have run for president if he had known this one thing

President Donald Trump knows his job is dangerous, having survived multiple assassination attempts, but makes a joke of it behind closed doors, according to a new report.

In public, the president has acknowledged the risks to his safety. After an assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner earlier this year, Trump quipped: “Nobody told me that this was such a dangerous profession. If Marco [Rubio] would have told me, maybe I wouldn’t have run.”

Privately, the president is also known to “joke” about the assassination attempts and does not dwell on past incidents, a White House official told Semafor Wednesday, and doesn’t let security concerns alter his decisions.

“He says it privately a lot, too: ‘Nobody told me how dangerous it is to be president, and if they had told me, I probably wouldn’t have run.’ And he makes comments like that in jest, but there’s a reality behind that,” the official said.

Trump survived two assassination attempts during the 2024 presidential election campaign. After the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ dinner, law enforcement officials also revealed there had been a thwarted attack on his 80th birthday UFC event on the White House lawn. Last week, Israel told U.S. intelligence counterparts that it had uncovered a new Iranian plan to kill Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Secret Service has been forced to re-evaluate it’s security measures and precautions in order to protect him.

“They’ve tried three different times to kill him,” Republican Senator Bernie Moreno told Semafor. “That’s why Secret Service is on alert the way they are. That’s why when you go to the White House, it’s a very tough situation.”

In June when the president hosted the outdoor UFC cage fight at the White House, podcaster Joe Rogan, who was a commentator at the event, raised security concerns but Trump reportedly brushed them off.

“I said to Trump, ‘I hope we don’t die in a terrorist attack,’” Rogan recounted on his podcast afterwards. “He goes, ‘We gotta go somehow.’”

Two days after the UFC fight, the Department of Justice, Secret Service and FBI announced they had intercepted an alleged plot to attack the event, the president and other senior members of the administration.

The president’s relaxed attitude toward threats appeared evident after the Secret Service stopped a gunman from opening fire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April.

Despite the event being evacuated and then canceled, Trump had reportedly wanted to return to the stage. He later told reporters that although being president is dangerous, he doesn’t let it stop him.

When asked if he was concerned about political violence, Trump said: “I’m concerned about everything. But I can’t be so concerned that you can’t function.”

He added: “It’s a dangerous profession. But I don’t view it that way. Look, I’m here to do a job.”

On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump faced an assassination attempt while he was on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, that saw his ear grazed by a bullet. A few weeks later, there was another attempt on him at the president’s golf club in Florida.

In addition to assassination attempts in the U.S., the president has faced threats internationally.

Last week, the Secret Service reportedly had to urge the president to fly out of Turkey on his old Air Force One, rather than on the new Boeing 747-8 gifted by the Qatari government, due to security concerns.

However, the president insisted he was flying on the older version “for old time’s sake.”

“I don’t think it made him happy when they made the airplane change,” Senator John Kennedy told Semafor. “They didn’t just do that because they didn’t like the color of the seats. There was a reason,” Kennedy added.

Iran has developed new plots to kill the president, Israel shared with the U.S., according to the Wall Street Journal last week. Iranhad ordered an operative to assassinate Trump before the 2024 election, according to federal prosecutors.