Former President Donald Trump took to his social media app Truth Social to vow revenge in a hypothetical scenario where Iran succeeded in assassinating him.
“If they do ‘assassinate President Trump,’ which is always a possibility, I hope that America obliterates Iran, wipes it off the face of the Earth”, Trump wrote. “If that does not happen, American Leaders will be considered ‘gutless’ cowards!”
Trump included a brief clip of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking before a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. “Iran’s regime has been fighting America from the moment it came to power,” Netanyahu said. “As we recently learned, they even brazenly threatened to assassinate President Trump,” he added.
Shortly after a gunman tried to assassinate Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, Secret Service sources told CNN that Trump was recently given heightened security presence around the same time due to an alleged assassination plot from Iran.
Sources told the network that Thomas Matthew Crooks, the shooter at the Trump rally in Butler, was likely not connected to this plot.
A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry also said the nation “strongly rejects any involvement in the recent armed attack on Trump or claims about Iran’s intention for such an action,” the Associated Press reported, citing Iranian state-run media. The spokesperson did say the Islamic Republic wanted to pursue legal action against the former president for his role in the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, a commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
Trump is planning to meet with Netanyahu on Friday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.