Former President Donald Trump said President Biden should threaten a massive military response to Iran if it tried to assassinate him, claiming the response should be to blow the country to “pieces.”
He said at a campaign event in North Carolina that Biden should issue a massive threat to Iran about how the US would respond if it were harmed.
The harsh comment came as Trump’s campaign claimed he was briefed by senior US intelligence officials about Iran’s threats to assassinate him.
Trump, who has suffered two recent assassination attempts, said Biden should tell Iran’s leaders that “if you do anything to harm this person, we’re going to blow up your largest cities and your country itself.”
“We are under threat. I have been threatened very directly,” Trump told a crowd near Charlotte.
He later repeated the threat in his comments. He said thatThe threat should be: “Your country will be blown to pieces, as we say.”
Former President Donald Trump said President Biden should tell Iran’s leaders that their country would be blown “to pieces” if he is harmed, after being told of an assassination threat.
Trump made the comments after The district attorney for Butler, Pennsylvania, tried to raise suspicions about the attempted murder in Butler, Pennsylvania, by asking why the father of the alleged shooter had hired “one of the best and most expensive lawyers” in the state. He said of the attempt: “It could be based in Iran. It could also be something else.”
Thomas Matthew Crooks has been charged with attempted murder for allegedly firing an AR-style rifle during Trump’s rally, killing one man, wounding two others and hitting Trump in the ear.
Crooks, 20, was shot and killed by snipers during the incident. Authorities say his father was the legal owner of the AR-15 weapon used in the shooting. Experts have said he is unlikely to be charged, though some members of his family have faced charges in high-profile mass shootings.
“As you know, there have been two assassination attempts on my life that we are aware of, and they may or may not involve Iran, but possibly so, I don’t really know, I can’t be sure,” Trump said during his events.
Trump also complained that federal investigators have been unable to extract data from the devices of the suspects who allegedly tried to kill him.
“The FBI has not been able to open the three apps that could be based overseas. And in the second case, the killer had six cell phones in his car, but the FBI has not been able to penetrate their security either. It should not be difficult to do so,” Trump said.
Trump demanded access to the murder suspects’ devices and then complained about the classified documents case against him that was thrown out by a Florida judge.
“Who are you calling? Who are you calling? In the old days, the FBI and the Justice Department used to catch people before anything happened. Nowadays, the FBI brass talk a lot while focusing on the political opponents of the sitting president,” he said, resurrecting his repeated claims of facing impeachment in multiple cases brought by state, local and federal prosecutors.
He quickly moved on to the cases against him, including the classified documents case handled by Judge Aileen Cannon, who handled the second murder case.
“That’s what they’re doing. They’re spending a lot of time… we won the case in Florida. It’s all one big scam. It’s all going against a political opponent, me, who is polling better than anyone else and who should hopefully be able to take back the presidency in 41 days and make our country great again, but all they’re focused on is their political opponent.”
“They have to get Apple to open up those foreign apps, and they have to get Apple, in the same way, to open up the six phones of the second lunatic, who is a lunatic, and open them up immediately, because we have a lot at stake.”
Trump suggested the attempts could be based “in Iran,” while referring to the defendants jailed on January 6 as “hostages.”
“They had no problem accessing the apps of the January 6th hostages. They accessed those apps. And they could be based in Iran. They could be from something else, but we’ll never know until they open them,” Trump said.
The FBI said in a statement on July 15, two days after Butler’s shooting, that “FBI technical specialists successfully gained access to Thomas Matthew Crooks’ phone and are continuing to analyze his electronic devices.”
In a court filing seeking pretrial detention for the second murder suspect, Ryan Routh, authorities frequently refer to evidence already obtained through cellphone searches.
“Agents also found six cellphones. One of them contained a Google search on how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico,” according to one line, suggesting an escape plan.
Other information indicates that the FBI obtained cell phone base station records from two of the cellphones found in the suspect’s Nissan Xterra. These showed that ROUTH traveled from Greensboro, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach, Florida, on August 14, 2024, and that on “various days and times from August 18, 2024, through September 15, 2024,” his cell phone accessed towers near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf course and residence in Florida.
That could be key information to place him near the crime scene.
According to the affidavit, a civilian witness contacted law enforcement and provided a box that the witness said Routh had provided to him several months ago that contained “ammunition, a metal pipe, miscellaneous building materials, tools, four phones and several letters.”
Trump had previously criticized prosecutors for charging Routh only with alleged weapons offenses, but prosecutors typically detain suspects on lesser charges and file more serious charges later. Within hours, Routh was charged with attempted murder.