Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the Islamic Republic of Iran should be destroyed if it was involved in harming any US White House candidate or former president.
The inflammatory remarks come as US intelligence agencies have warned of threats to the lives of Republicans from Tehran after two assassination attempts in recent months.
“As you know, there have been two attempts to assassinate me that we know about, and Iran may or may not have been involved in them – but it’s possible,” Trump said at a campaign event in North Carolina.
“If I were president, I would tell the threatening country, in this case Iran, that if you do anything to harm this man, we will destroy your largest cities and country,” he said.
Trump said he and the United States had received a “very direct threat from Iran” and that Tehran must receive a strong message that it will face the most severe consequences if it engages in any plot to assassinate or harm a U.S. president or presidential candidate.
“The best way to do it is through the office of the president, that (if) you make any attacks on former presidents or presidential candidates, your country will be torn to pieces, as we say.”
Trump also said it was “strange” that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was in New York this week and was given adequate security to attend the United Nations General Assembly despite reports of threats.
“We have massive security forces protecting them, and yet they’re threatening our former president and the leading candidate to be the next president of the United States,” Trump said, referring to himself.
The United States is obligated under its treaty with the United Nations and its own laws to provide protection to foreign heads of state at the General Assembly.
– ‘Credible intelligence’ –
Trump’s remarks come as world leaders are trying to prevent hostilities between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel from spiraling into a wider regional war.
Iran has rejected accusations that it was trying to kill Trump this summer, after a gunman opened fire at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, killing one person and wounding the presidential candidate.
A few days later, Trump posted on social media that if Iran killed him, “I hope the United States destroys Iran, wipes them off the face of the Earth.”
In a highly critical report on the security arrangements surrounding Trump at the Pennsylvania rally, a US Senate committee noted that the deployment of elite US Secret Service countersnipers was “in response to ‘credible intelligence’ of a threat.”
On Wednesday, Trump, 78, said the man suspected of killing in Pennsylvania had used “potentially foreign apps” and that the alleged gunman in a second attempt in Florida had multiple mobile phones that US authorities have been unable to unlock.
“He’s got to get Apple to unlock these foreign apps (and) unlock six phones of another lunatic,” Trump said. “Because we have a lot at stake.”
On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland called the assassination attempt “abhorrent.”
He said, “In our country, there have been two assassination attempts against the former President in the last three months. This is disgusting.”
“The Justice Department will not tolerate violence that attacks the very core of our democracy. And we will pursue and hold accountable those who commit it. It must stop.”
In August, the United States announced it had foiled a plan by a Pakistani linked to Tehran to assassinate a US official in revenge for the death of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US strike in Iraq ordered by then-President Trump in 2020.
US intelligence services have also warned of an attempted cyber attack by Iran-backed actors on the presidential campaign of Trump and his rival Kamala Harris.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
