President Trump denied Wednesday that he is working with Israel to “blow Iran into smithereens” — saying he wants the Islamic theocracy to “peacefully grow and prosper,” but without nukes.
“I want Iran to be a great and successful Country, but one that cannot have a Nuclear Weapon,” the president wrote on Truth Social, a day after publicly warning Iran it would be “obliterated” if it assassinated him.
“Reports that the United States, working in conjunction with Israel, is going to blow Iran into smithereens, ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED.
Trump issued a chilling warning to Iran on Tuesday when the president was asked about the country potentially assassinating him. Getty Images“I would much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper,” Trump, 78, went on.
“We should start working on it immediately, and have a big Middle East Celebration when it is signed and completed. God Bless the Middle East!”
During Trump’s successful 2024 presidential campaign, he received briefings from the intelligence community about an active assassination plot by Iranian officials, apparently seeking vengeance for the January 2020 killing of notorious paramilitary leader Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
As far back as 2022, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei promoted an animated video simulating a drone attack on Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
One Secret Service agent revealed to congressional investigators that they were alerted in the late spring of 2023 about the threat of a “possible drone attack” against Trump by Tehran, though it is unclear whether the warning stemmed from the animation promoted by Khamenei or was buttressed by additional intelligence.
Trump said that he was reluctantly signing the anti-Iran order to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. ZUMAPRESS.com
President Trump meets with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office on February 4, 2025. AFP via Getty ImagesThe president survived two assassination attempts ahead of the 2024 election, one on July 13 during a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., and the other at his West Palm Beach, Fla. golf course on Sept. 15.
On July 12, one day before the first attempt on Trump’s life, authorities detained Pakistani national Asif Merchant, 46, whom prosecutors have alleged in court documents had been conspiring with Iranian handlers to potentially target the former president.
Iran is also alleged to have supported a hack into the Trump campaign, which saw a private dossier about now-Vice President JD Vance leaked to several outlets, including Politico and The Washington Post.
Trump wrote that he wants “Iran to be a great and successful country.” AP“Big threats on my life by Iran. The entire U.S. [sic] Military is watching and waiting. Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again. Not a good situation for anyone. I am surrounded by more men, guns, and weapons than I have ever seen before,” Trump wrote on X ten days after the second assassination attempt.
On Nov. 8, three days after Trump defeated then-Vice President Kamala Harris, federal prosecutors charged that an unnamed official in Iran’s notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps tasked agent Farhad Shakeri, 51, in September to “focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating” the then-Republican nominee.
When Shakeri told his mysterious handler that the Trump plot would “cost a ‘huge’ amount of money,” the Iranian official responded: “We already spent a lot of money … [s]o the money’s not an issue.”
In a phone conversation with an FBI agent, Shakeri, who did time in US prisons for robbery and is currently believed to be in Iran, said the IRGC official told him Oct. 7 to have a plan in place to kill Trump “within seven days.”
If Shakeri did not meet his deadline, the contact allegedly said, the hit on Trump would be postponed until after the election, because Tehran officials believed that the Republican nominee would lose “and, afterward, it would be easier to assassinate [him].”
