Former President Donald Trump had choice words for Iran on Wednesday, claiming that if he were reelected, he would blow Iran to "smithereens" if a U.S. presidential candidate were attacked.
"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," Trump said during a rally in Mint Hill, North Carolina . "But right now we don't have that leadership or the necessary people."
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence briefed the former president on Tuesday "regarding real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him in an effort to destabilize and sow chaos in the United States," Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.
Cheung also claimed that "the terror regime in Iran loves the weakness of Kamala Harris, and is terrified of the strength and resolve of President Trump."
Since July, Trump has been the target of two assassination attempts. The first attempt occurred at a July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the second attempt came earlier this month while he was golfing at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Trump told the crowd of supporters in North Carolina that the attempts on his life "may or may not involve, but possibly do, Iran."
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is in the U.S. to attend the United Nations General Assembly this week, which Trump criticized.
"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 — certainly a strange set of circumstances," he said.
Trump also thanked Democrats for helping Republicans pass legislation bolstering his Secret Service protection. The bill is headed to President Joe Biden's desk after the Senate advanced it Tuesday following the House's vote last week.
The former president also reprised his recent manufacturing pitch of implementing massive tariffs on foreign nations to voters hours before Vice President Kamala Harris is set to give her manufacturing speech in Pennsylvania.
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Trump touted a 15% Made in America tax rate if reelected and bragged about decreasing the business tax rate from 39% to 21% under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. He made these claims one day earlier during a rally in Savannah, Georgia, another busy seaport in the country.
"Vote Trump, and you will see a mass exodus of manufacturing from China to Pennsylvania — you haven't heard that too much — from Germany to Georgia, from South Korea to North Carolina," Trump said.
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