Iran’s threats targeting Donald Trump have not been subtle, nor are they particularly new. Perhaps the most obvious sign that the regime seeks to assassinate him came in the form of an animated video that the Ayatollah Khamenei posted to Twitter in January 2022, depicting a drone flying over the Mar-a-Lago golf course and striking Trump.
Yet that video generated scant media coverage in the U.S. relative to its significance. There were other important Iran-linked developments that also went inexplicably overlooked in recent years, such as the suspension of Biden’s Iran envoy, Robert Malley, reportedly over allegations that he mishandled classified information, media reports on an Iranian foreign-ministry-influence operation that implicated at least one current Biden appointee at the Pentagon, and ongoing assassination plots targeting former Trump officials, including John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Brian Hook.
To the extent that these situations were covered in the press and discussed in Washington and elsewhere, they were not ever part of a sustained conversation that became a primary focus of attention on Capitol Hill and in political circles. And, largely because the Biden administration sought to revive a version of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, Republicans were the primary participants in those conversations.
But as Tehran’s threats against Trump have grown during the 2024 campaign, Iran’s malign activities in America are starting to get the attention they deserve. A drip of disclosures about Iran’s work to stop Trump has turned into a steady drumbeat of stories, the most significant of which is probably the New York Times’ scoop on U.S. intelligence about an active Iranian assassination plot against him.
This afternoon, the FBI, Office of Director of National Intelligence, and the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency confirmed reports that attributed to Iran a recent hack of the Trump campaign. A joint statement from the agencies said: “The Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the Presidential campaigns of both political parties.”
Tehran’s efforts are receiving more attention, certainly, because it has escalated its efforts against Trump in the context of the presidential race. But long before this year’s campaign kicked off in earnest, the mullahs’ regime had already set in motion outrageous efforts to subvert America’s political process, infiltrate U.S. governmental institutions, and assassinate their enemies. The new focus on these threats is long overdue and deserves to remain a matter of sustained vigilance long after this November.