Days after it was reported that Donald Trump rejected Israel\u2019s plot to assassinate<\/a> Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the president publicly announced that the United States knows his location and is holding off killing him \u201cfor now.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Israeli officials, meanwhile, have openly demanded his death. This week, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Khamenei \u201ccan no longer be allowed to exist.\u201d<\/p>\n Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, turning to Fox News over the weekend<\/a> to make the case for the United States to join a war with Iran<\/a>, said Khamenei sees the president as \u201cpublic enemy number one.\u201d<\/p>\n Israel has sought to justify intervention using allegations of Trump\u2019s assassination threats as leverage, while the United States has faced years of blowback<\/a> in the wake of Middle East wars and the 2020 killing of a top Iranian general.<\/p>\n During his first administration in 2020, Trump ordered a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport that killed Qassem Soleimani,<\/a> commander of the elite Quds Force with Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards Corps, after he had survived several assassination attempts from western, Israeli and Arab states over the past two decades.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pointed to allegations of assassination threats against Donald Trump to urge the United States to join his campaign against Iran, while Israeli officials mull targeting Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (IRANIAN SUPREME LEADER’S WEBSITE)<\/p>\n The strike, which was planned over several months, ignited fierce blowback across the region, denounced by Iran\u2019s foreign minister at the time as an act of international terrorism.<\/p>\n By 2024, U.S. intelligence officials had collected evidence they believe shows Tehran was seeking ways to kill then-candidate Trump, according to Politico.<\/a><\/p>\n In September, Trump claimed there were \u201cbig threats on my life by Iran.\u201d Neither of the two assassination attempts against then-candidate Trump in the summer of 2024 have been linked to Iran.<\/p>\n One month earlier,<\/a> a Pakistani national with alleged ties to Iran was accused of seeking to carry out a murder-for-hire plot targeting U.S. government officials, according to federal prosecutors.<\/p>\n Asif Raza Merchant was accused of joining a complex plot to carry out assassinations last year, including trying to hire hit men who were undercover officers, according to an indictment.<\/p>\n In November<\/a>, a fugitive Iranian government operative was accused of hiring a pair of New Yorkers he met in prison to carry out an assassination plot against a critic of the regime. He allegedly admitted to FBI agents that he\u2019d also been tasked with finding a hit squad to kill then-President-elect Trump.<\/p>\n Farhad Shakeri claimed he was asked by regime officials to \u201cput aside his other efforts… and focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating\u201d Trump, according to a criminal complaint in Manhattan federal court.<\/p>\n In February, Trump, who campaigned against U.S. involvement in foreign wars, said Iran would be \u201cobliterated\u201d if he was assassinated by state actors.<\/p>\n \u201cThat would be a terrible thing for them to do,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cNot because of me. If they did that, they would be obliterated. That would be the end. I\u2019ve left instructions: if they do it, they get obliterated. There won\u2019t be anything left.\u201d<\/p>\n Iran has denied ever targeting the president.<\/p>\n \u201cA new scenario is fabricated,\u201d Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X <\/a>following accusations against Shakeri.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 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,\u201d Araghchi wrote.<\/p>\n Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said the allegations were part of a \u201crepulsive\u201d plot by Israel to \u201ccomplicate matters between America and Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n In January, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stressed that Iran \u201cnever attempted\u201d to kill Trump, \u201cand we never will.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is another one of those schemes that Israel and other countries are designing to promote Iranophobia,\u201d Pezeshkian told NBC News<\/a>. \u201cIran has never attempted to, nor does it plan to assassinate anyone. At least as far as I know.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked whether there have been any plots against the president under Iran, he insisted there have been \u201cnone whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on June 19 that Trump intends to make a decision on whether to strike Iran within the next two weeks pending negotiations with Tehran (EPA)<\/p>\n On June 15, Netanyahu asked Fox News host Bret Baier whether \u201cthese people who chant \u2018death to America\u2019\u201d and \u201ctried to assassinate President Trump twice\u201d should \u201chave nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to your cities.\u201d<\/p>\n Baier then pressed Netanyahu about his claim that Iran launched two assassination attempts.<\/p>\n \u201cThrough proxies, yes.\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThrough, through their intel, yes, they want to kill him,\u201d he added. \u201cHe\u2019s enemy number one.\u201d<\/p>\n Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has emerged as a prominent voice across right-wing media against the United States joining Israel\u2019s war<\/a>, told Texas Senator Ted Cruz that the United States would be bombing Tehran if those assassination allegations were credible. \u201cWe should attack Iran immediately if that\u2019s true,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Cruz insisted that \u201cnobody disputes\u201d Iran is trying to kill the president, calling it an \u201cobjective fact\u201d following his interview with Carlson.<\/p>\n![\"Israel](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/COMBO-ISRAEL-IRAN-US-CONFLICT-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY-m8qzkm93.jpeg\")
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