Former President Donald Trump said President Biden should threaten a massive military response to Iran if it were to try to assassinate him, saying the response should be to blow the country to ‘smithereens.’
He said at a campaign event in North Carolina that Biden should issue the massive massive threat to Iran about how the US would respond if they harm him.
The stark comment came the Trump campaign says top U.S. intelligence officials briefed him on threats from Iran to assassinate him.
Trump, who has suffered two recent assassination attempts, said Biden should communicate to Iran’s leaders that ‘If you do anything to harm this person we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens.’
‘We are under threat. I have been threatened very directly,’ Trump told a crowd near Charlotte.
He repeated the threat later in his remarks. He said the threat should be: ‘Your country gets blown to smithereens, as we say.’
Trump made the comments after he tried to raise suspicions about the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, asking why the alleged shooter’s father had gotten ‘one of the best and most expensive lawyers’ in the state. He said of that attempt: ‘It could be Iran based. It also could be something else.’
Thomas Matthew Crooks has been charged attempted assassination for allegedly firing an AR-style rifle during Trump’s rally, killing one man, injuring two and wounding Trump’s ear.
Crooks, 20, was fatally shot by snipers during the incident. Authorities say his father legally owned the AR-15 weapon used in the shooting. Experts have said he is unlikely to be charged, although some family members have faced charges in prominent mass shooting events.
As you know, 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, can’t be sure,’ Trump said during his events.
Trump also complained federal investigators haven’t been able to scrape data from the devices of the suspects who allegedly tried to kill him.
‘The FBI has been unable to open the three potentially foreign based apps. And in the second case, the assassin had six cell phones in his car, yet the FBI has likewise been unable to penetrate their guard. Shouldn’t be tough to do,’ Trump said.
‘Who is he calling? Who is he calling? In the old days, the FBI and the DOJ used to capture people before anything happened. In current days, the upper echelon of the FBI is all talk while they focus on the sitting President’s political opponents,’ he claimed, resurrected his repeated claims of facing political prosecution in multiple cases brought by state, local, and federal prosecutors.
He quickly switched to the cases against him, including the classified documents case that Judge Aileen Cannon, who has drawn the second assassination case, has drawn.
‘That’s what they’re doing. They spend so much time – we won the case in Florida. It’s all a big scam. It’s all against a political opponent me, who’s doing better in the polls than anybody else and should be hopefully able to recapture the presidency in 41 days and make our country great again, but all they focus on is their political opponent.’
‘They must get Apple to open these foreign apps, and they must get Apple to likewise, open the six phones from the second lunatic who is a lunatic, and open them immediately, because we have a lot at stake.’
Trump suggested without the attempts could be ‘Iran-based,’ while referring to jailed January 6 defendants as ‘hostages.’
‘They had no problem breaking into the apps of the January 6 hostages. They broke into those apps. And they could be Iran-based. They could also be something else, but we’ll never know until they’re opened,’ Trump said.
The FBI said in a July 15 statement two days after the Butler shooting that ‘FBI technical specialists successfully gained access to Thomas Matthew Crooks’ phone, and they continue to analyze his electronic devices.’