Trump says he'd threaten to blow Iran 'to smithereens' over candidate threats

Former President Trump on Wednesday said he’d threaten to blow Iran “to smithereens” if he was back in the White House and a candidate faced threats from Tehran, comments that come after his campaign said he was briefed about Iran’s alleged assassination threats against him.

“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. We are going to blow it to smithereens,” Trump said at a campaign event in North Carolina.

The Republican nominee thanked Democrats in Congress for joining GOP lawmakers to pass legislation that would boost his Secret Service protection. The Senate advanced the legislation Tuesday after it unanimously passed the House last week, sending it to President Biden's desk for an expected signature.

Trump said he would take further action if he was in the White House.

"But right now we don't have that leadership or the necessary people, the necessary leaders," Trump said, in an apparent dig at Biden.

The former president was grazed by a would-be assassin's bullet when shots were fired at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., this summer. Another suspect accused of planning to assassinate Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Fla., this month has been charged. In both cases the suspects were U.S. citizens.

"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," Trump speculated at his campaign event Wednesday.

Trump's campaign had said Tuesday that the candidate had been briefed by intelligence officials about alleged assassination attempts by Iran, referring broadly to "continued and coordinated" threats.

The candidate had said in a Truth Social post earlier in the day that “moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again.” 

"Meanwhile, we have the president of Iran in our country this week, we have large security forces guarding him, and yet they're threatening our former president and the leading candidate to become the next president of the United States," Trump said. 

Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, spoke to the U.N. General Assembly’s annual gathering in New York this week.  

Trump is in North Carolina as polls show he and Harris locked in a near tie for the Tar Heel State, amid signs of movement toward Democrats in the battleground. 

The former president has been touting his proposal to boost U.S. manufacturers through the use of tariffs. He addressed voters at the Mint Hill, N.C., facility of the Mossack Group.