By James Oliphant
(Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday said Iran may have been behind recent attempts to assassinate him and suggested that if he were president and another country threatened a U.S. presidential candidate, it risked being “blown to smithereens.”
Trump made his remarks at a campaign event after U.S. intelligence officials briefed him a day earlier on “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him,” according to his campaign.
Federal authorities are probing assassination attempts targeting Trump at his Florida golf course in mid-September and at a rally in Pennsylvania in July. There has been no public suggestion by law enforcement agencies of involvement by Iran or any other foreign power in either incident.
“There have been two assassination attempts on my life that we know of, and they may or may not involve, but possibly do, Iran, but I don’t really know,” Trump said at an event a pipe-fittings plant in Mint Hill, North Carolina.
“We’ve been threatened very directly by Iran, and I think you have to let them know … you do any attacks on former presidents or candidates for president, your country gets blown to smithereens,” he said.
Trump also questioned why Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who is attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York, is being protected by U.S. law enforcement.
“We have the president of Iran in our country this week, we have large security forces guarding him, and yet they’re threatening our former president and the leading candidate to become the next president — certainly a strange set of circumstances,” said Trump, who faces Democrat Kamala Harris, the current vice president, in the Nov. 5 election.
In his remarks, Trump said the FBI has been unable to break into six phones that he said were seized from the man accused of trying to kill Trump on his Florida golf course. Ryan Routh, 58, was charged on Tuesday with attempted assassination of a political candidate.
Trump’s claim could not be immediately verified. An FBI spokesperson said it had no comment on an ongoing investigation. The agency has previously said it was able to pull some location data from at least two of Routh’s phones. Trump called on Apple to assist the bureau.
U.S. government agencies said last week Iranian hackers sent emails containing stolen material from the Republican former president’s campaign to people involved in Democratic President Joe Biden’s then re-election campaign, part of an alleged broader effort by Tehran to influence the U.S. election.
Iran has denied U.S. claims of interfering in American affairs. Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York did not respond to a request for comment late on Tuesday.
Trump said at the event on Wednesday that the United States’ enemies are “desperate” to prevent him from returning to the White House because he will restore the country’s standing in the world.
“This is why people in countries want to kill me. They’re not happy with me,” Trump said. “It’s a risky business. This is why they want to kill me. They only kill consequential presidents.”
(Reporting by James Oliphant; Additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Daniel Wallis)