Trump demands Biden threaten to ‘tear Iran to pieces’ if they ‘harm’ him

Former President Donald Trump said President Biden should threaten a large-scale military response to Iran if it tried to kill him, saying the response would be to “chop the country to pieces.”

He said at a campaign rally in North Carolina that Biden should issue a huge threat to Iran and outline how the US would respond if it harmed him.

The sharp comment came from the Trump campaign, which says senior U.S. intelligence officials briefed him on Iran’s threats to kill him.

Trump, who was recently assassinated twice, said Biden should let Iranian leaders know: “If you hurt this person, we will blow up your biggest cities and the country itself.”

“We are being threatened. I am being threatened very directly,” Trump told a crowd near Charlotte.

He repeated the threat later in his remarks. He said thatThe threat should be: ‘Your country will be blown to pieces, as we say.’

Trump made these statements after he tried to raise suspicions about the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, by asking why the alleged shooter’s father had hired “one of the best, most expensive lawyers” in the state. He said of the attempt: “It could have been in Iran. It could have been something else.”

Thomas Matthew Crooks has been charged with attempted murder for allegedly firing an AR-style rifle at Trump’s rally, killing one man, wounding two and severing Trump’s ear.

Crooks, 20, was fatally shot by snipers during the incident. Authorities said his father legally owned the AR-15 weapon used in the shooting. Experts have said it is unlikely he will face charges, though some family members have been charged in high-profile mass shootings.

“As you know, there have been two assassination attempts on me, that we know of. It may be that Iran is involved, but it may be. I don’t know for sure, I can’t say for sure,” Trump said during his rallies.

Trump also complained that federal investigators have failed to collect data from the devices of suspects who allegedly tried to kill him.

“The FBI failed to open the three potentially foreign apps. And in the second case, the killer had six cell phones in his car, but the FBI also failed to breach their security. That shouldn’t be hard,” Trump said.

Trump demanded access to the equipment of murder suspects, then sued over a classified documents lawsuit filed against him that was dismissed by a Florida judge.

“Who’s he calling? Who’s he calling? It used to be that the FBI and the Justice Department would arrest people before anything happened. Now, the FBI top brass is all talk while they’re targeting the sitting president’s political opponents,” he claimed, reviving his repeated claims of political persecution in multiple cases brought by state, local and federal prosecutors.

He quickly moved on to the cases against him, including the case involving the secret documents brought by Judge Aileen Cannon, who tried the second murder trial.

“That’s what they’re doing. They’re spending so much time on it – we won the case in Florida. It’s all a big scam. It’s all against a political opponent, me, who is polling better than anyone else and hopefully should be able to retake the presidency in 41 days and make our country great again, but they’re only focused on their political opponent.”

“They need to get Apple to open up these foreign apps, and they need to get Apple to open up the six phones of the second crazy person, who is a crazy person, in the same way, and they need to get Apple to open up the six phones of the second crazy person, and they need to do it immediately, because the stakes are high.”

Trump suggested the efforts could be “Iran-based,” while calling the suspects jailed on January 6 “hostages.”

“They had no problem hacking into the January 6th hostage apps. They hacked into those apps. And they could be based in Iran. They could be something else, but we won’t 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 have successfully accessed the telephone of Thomas Matthew Crooks and are continuing to analyze his electronic devices.”

In a legal proceeding seeking pretrial detention for the second murder suspect, Ryan Routh, authorities are repeatedly citing evidence already obtained through searches of cellphones.

“Officers also found six cell phones. One of the cell phones contained a Google search for how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico,” one line said, suggesting an escape plan.

Other information says the FBI obtained cell location data for two of the cellphones found in the suspect’s Nissan Xterra. It showed that ROUTH traveled from Greensboro, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach, Florida, on August 14, 2024, and that his cell had access to towers near Trump’s Florida golf course and his Mar-a-Lago residence “on multiple days and times from August 18, 2024, to September 15, 2024.”

That could be key information that places him close to the crime scene.

According to the case file, a civilian witness contacted police and gave them a box Routh had given him several months earlier. The box contained “ammunition, a metal pipe, various building materials, tools, four telephones, and several letters.”

Trump previously criticized prosecutors for charging Routh only with alleged weapons offenses, but prosecutors routinely hold suspects on lesser charges and bring more serious charges later. Within hours, Routh was charged with attempted murder.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said Trump had been briefed on “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate (Trump) in an effort to destabilize the United States and sow chaos.”

Trump made the comments at a rally where he said voters in North Carolina would tell Vice President Harris, “You’re fired.”