US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has claimed there are “big threats” on his life, coming from Iran.
The former US president made the allegation on Wednesday, a day after he and his team held a meeting with representatives from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).
The agency declined to reveal details of the meeting, although the Trump campaign said it had focused on “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him in an effort to destabilize and sow chaos in the US.”
“Big threats on my life by Iran,” the Republican presidential candidate wrote in a post published on his Truth Social platform and X (formerly Twitter).
“The entire US military is watching and waiting. Moves were already made by Iran that did not work out, but they will try again. Not a good situation for anyone,” he added.
Trump noted that he is now “surrounded by more men, guns, and weapons than I have ever seen before” and warned that “an attack on a former president is a death wish for the attacker.”
He returned to the issue during a rally in Mint Hill, North Carolina later the same day, saying: “If I were the president, I would inform the threatening country, in this case, Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens.”
“There would be no more threats. But right now, we do not have that leadership,” the 78-year-old said, referring to US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the latter of whom is the Democratic presidential candidate.
Trump noted that there have been two assassination attempts against him in recent months – one at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania in July and the other at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida in mid-September. “They may or may not involve… Iran. But I do not really know,” he stated.
Tehran had earlier promised that the assassination of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, which happened when Trump was in office, would be avenged. Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike outside an airport in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in January 2020.
However, after Trump was wounded in the ear in an assassination attempt on July 13, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani stressed that Tehran “strongly rejects” any suggestion that it was involved. “Iran is determined to pursue legal action against Trump for his direct role in the crime of assassinating Martyr General Qassem Soleimani,” Kanaani said.