President Donald Trump acknowledged that his decision to attack Iran was at least partially motivated by efforts to assassinate him.
The 79-year-old Trump ordered airstrikes against Iran over the weekend that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the Washington Post reported that he gave an interview Sunday night suggesting that decision was connected with two two cases of alleged Iranian murder-for-hire attempts that were charged by U.S. federal prosecutors.
“I got him before he got me,” Trump told ABC News on Sunday night. “I got him first.”
Iran had plotted to kill Trump in 2024 in retaliation for a January 2020 airstrike that killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, and federal prosecutors charged two cases involving Iran that appear to be unrelated to two assassination attempts while he campaigned for a second term two years ago.
"They tried twice," Trump told ABC News.
The White House did not provide evidence to back Trump's claims, saying the "plots to assassinate President Trump are just one reason" to "eliminate terrorists like Ayatollah Khamenei," but Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, said the efforts to kill the U.S. president were part of a broader pattern that justified the war.
“It is responsible for a series of unprovoked armed attacks against the United States and Israel, violations of the UN charter, and threats to international peace and security across the Middle East,” Waltz said Saturday at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. “It has even attempted to assassinate the U.S. president, President Trump."
