Updates on the U.S. and Iran, a profile of the man who wants to save NATO, and more
One thing is clear: Israel openly wants to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “can no longer be allowed to exist,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Thursday, just days after U.S. President Donald Trump publicly announced that the U.S. knows Khamenei’s location but is holding off on killing him “for now.”
Another isn’t so much, depending on who you ask.
“I’ve never heard that before,” former Fox News hostTucker Carlsonresponded quizzically after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)assertedthat Iran has tried—and is trying—to kill Trump. “We should attack Iran immediately if that’s true,” Carlson, one of the flagbearers of the anti-war wing within thefactious MAGA right, facetiously continued.
Cruz argued that he doesn’t think the U.S. military attacking Iran or killing Khamenei would necessarily be the most appropriate response to the threat against the U.S. President, but he insisted that “nobody disputes” Iran is indeed trying to assassinate Trump. “It’s an objective fact,” Cruzposted on Xafter the interview.
AU.S. attack on Iran, including potentially targeting Khamenei,may yet be in the cards, despite Trump’s political campaignsagainst military interventionsaimed at “regime change.” But it’s unlikely to be in retaliation to an Iranian assassination plot—unless such a plot is successful.
Earlier this year, Trump said he had ordered the annihilation of the state of Iran if it assassinates him.
“That would be a terrible thing for them to do,” hetoldreporters in February. “Not because of me. If they did that, they would be obliterated. That would be the end. I’ve left instructions: if they do it, they get obliterated. There won’t be anything left.”
Read More:As Trump Considers Striking Iran, Russia Warns World Is ‘Millimeters’ Away From Nuclear Catastrophe
Iran isknown to conduct assassination plots overseas, usuallytargeting Iranian dissidentsand not always successful. Iranian officials have also beenvowingto kill Trump for years after he ordered theassassinationof Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who led the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, in January 2020.
Still, as the U.S. has even charged would-be assassins, Iran has denied ever targeting Trump.
Politicoreportedlast July that the U.S. intelligence community had collected increasing evidence suggesting Iran was actively working on plots to kill Trump. Neither of the attempts that summer on Trump’s life inButler, Pa., orWest Palm Beach, Fla., have been linked to Iran, though theshooter in the latterexpressed support for Iran in public writings. But around the same time, a 46-year-old Pakistani national namedAsif Merchantwas arrested in Texas and charged with seeking to kill high-ranking U.S. politicians or officials—potentially including Trump—allegedly under the instructions of Iran.
Read More:Iran, Trump, and the Third Assassination Plot
“We have not received any reports on this matter from the U.S. Government,” a spokesperson for Iran’s United Nations MissiontoldCNN at the time. “However, it is evident that the modus operandi in question contradicts the Iranian Government’s policy of legally prosecuting the murderer of General Soleimani.”
In September, Trump’s campaignsaidhe had been briefed on “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him.”
“Big threats on my life by Iran,” Trumppostedon social media. “The entire U.S. Military is watching and waiting. Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again.”
The Biden Administration sent a warning through Switzerland in September that an assassination attempt against Trump would be seen as an act of war, to which Iran responded in October—again via Swiss diplomats—that it would not try to kill Trump, U.S. officialstoldtheWall Street Journal.
In November 2024, after Trump was elected, the Justice Departmentannouncedcharges against a 51-year-old Afghan national named Farhad Shakeri, who was allegedly tasked by Iranian officials to assemble a plan to surveil and assassinate Trump.
“A new scenario is fabricated,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchipostedon X. “The American people have made their decision. And Iran respects their right to elect the President of their choice. The path forward is also a choice. It begins with respect.” Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaeiclaimedthe allegations were part of a “repulsive” plot by Israel to sabotage U.S.-Iran relations.
Iranian President Masoud PezeshkiantoldNBC in January that Iran “never attempted” to kill Trump, “and we never will.”
“This is another one of those schemes that Israel and other countries are designing to promote Iranophobia,” Pezeshkian said. “Iran has never attempted to nor does it plan to assassinate anyone. At least as far as I know.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who derailedU.S.-Iran nuclear negotiationsbylaunching strikes last week against Iranand isreportedlytrying to sway Trump to authorize more direct U.S. militaryinvolvement in the conflict, claimed in aFox News interviewon Sunday that Iran actively worked to assassinate Trump because he’s “forceful” and “decisive.”
“They want to kill him,” Netanyahu insisted. “He’s enemy number one.”
