President Donald Trump warned months ago that he had given his advisers instructions to “obliterate” Iran if the regime carried out alleged longstanding plans to assassinate him.
The wild claim was made long before the president’s controversial decision to join Israel’s war against Tehran, and came after three men were charged over a foiled plot by the Iranian regime to kill Trump while he was campaigning to return to the White House last year.
“If they did that, they would be obliterated,’’ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in February, when asked about the plot.
“That would be the end. I’ve left instructions. If they do it, they get obliterated. There won’t be anything left.”
The alleged assassination plan made headlines last year, days after Trump defeated Kamala Harris.
In an indictment that was unsealed on Nov. 9, the department accused Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps of asking an Afghan national, Farhad Shakeri, to surveil and ultimately assassinate Trump—if possible, before the election.
If the assassination could not be carried out within that timeframe, the department alleged, the Revolutionary Guard would wait until after the election as it believed Trump would lose to Harris. This would have resulted in him having fewer Secret Service protections, making it easier to kill him.
Had the alleged assassination attempt been carried out, it would have been the third attempt on Trump’s life after his near-death experience in Pennsylvania in June, followed by the foiled assassination attempt at his West Palm golf course in September.
But the U.S. government had repeatedly warned him before then that Iran may try to retaliate for a 2020 drone strike Trump ordered during his first term, which killed then-commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani.
While Iran has previously denied wanting to kill Trump, or that it is targeting U.S. citizens, last night’s attack has raised concerns that Iran could seek to retaliate, not just against U.S. Army bases and troops in the Middle East, but also against the president and Americans more broadly.
In recent days, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has used the assassination plot to fuel claims that Trump was a top target for Iran.
“He killed Qasem Soleimani. He made it very clear, including now, ‘You cannot have a nuclear weapon, which means you cannot enrich uranium.’ He’s been very forceful, so for them, he’s enemy number one,” Netanyahu told Fox News last week.
Iran’s supposed desire to kill Trump also became the subject of a verbal slanging match between conservative pundit Tucker Carlson and Texas Senator Ted Cruz last week as Trump pondered whether to join Israel’s war with Tehran.
“Do we believe that they’re trying to murder Trump?” Carlson asked Cruz after the GOP senator mentioned it during their now viral conversation on The Tucker Carlson Show.
“Yes, I do,” Cruz replied.
“Then why aren’t you calling for military action against Tehran right now?” asked Carlson during a heated discussion in which he advocated against support Israel’s bombing campaign.
“Because they’re not very effective. In terms of hitmen, their hitmen are not very effective… They’re a weak country who is on its knees,” Cruz responded.
“So why are we so afraid of them? Why are they the biggest threat? If they’re a weak country that’s on its knees? I’m trying to keep track,” Carlson said, prompting Cruz to accuse him of being “snarky.”
The three men charged over the assassination plot were 51-year-old Shakeri, who is believed to be at large in Tehran, alongside two other men he met while serving time in a U.S. prison for robbery: New York residents Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36.
At the time Trump claimed he had given his advisers instructions to obliterate Iran if it succeeded in killing him, he was signing an executive order directing his Cabinet to put “maximum pressure” on the country by imposing sanctions or investigating U.S. proxy groups.
The order also said that “Iran should be denied a nuclear weapon and intercontinental ballistic missiles; Iran’s terrorist network should be neutralized; and Iran’s aggressive development of missiles, as well as other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities, should be countered.”
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