President Masoud Pezeshkian told NBC News Lester Holt in an exclusive interview in Tehran that Iran never planned to kill Donald Trump during the U.S. election campaign last year.
Pezeshkian responded, “This is just another one of those schemes that Israel and other countries are designing to promote Iranophobia,” in response to a question concerning the purported conspiracy against Trump that was described by U.S. authorities. Iran has no plans to kill anyone and has never tried to do so. As far as I am aware, anyway.
“You’re saying there was never an Iranian plot to kill Donald Trump?” Holt then challenged Pezeshkian.
Not a single one, Pezeshkian answered.
When asked if Iran would guarantee that Trump’s life would not be attempted, Pezeshkian responded, “We have never attempted this to begin with and we never will.”
The Iranian president is speaking to international journalists for the first time since the U.S. presidential election. A government interpreter was present and provided real-time translation during the session. Where there are inconsistencies, this article depends on the independent translation that was vetted by NBC News.
When Trump was the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, the Justice Department accused an Iranian man of attempting to kill him in a murder-for-hire scheme in November. Two additional people were accused of plotting the murder of an Iranian American journalist and activist who has voiced disapproval of the Iranian government’s treatment of women.
According to U.S. officials, the scheme was part of Iran’s attempt to exact revenge for the killing of Qasem Soleimani, a senior Iranian general, who was killed in Baghdad by a U.S. drone strike that Trump ordered during his first term in office.
As previously reported by NBC News, a U.S. official stated that Iran issued a formal statement through Swiss diplomats in mid-October of last year stating that it would not attempt to assassinate Trump.
The governments of the United States and Europe claim that Iran has been trying for years to suppress Iranians who have voiced their disapproval of the regime abroad.
Following Tehran’s intimidation of Iranian journalists stationed in Britain last year, the United Kingdom summoned Iran’s senior diplomat to London. An attack attributed to Iran resulted in the stabbing of one journalist in the leg. Tehran refutes the charges.
The conversation, which touched on a number of topics, including the ongoing Middle East conflict, Iran’s proxy forces in the area, women’s rights in Iran, and its nuclear program, will be fully reported by NBC Nightly News later Tuesday.