EXCLUSIVE: Iran VP denies plot to kill Trump

Donald Trump on Wednesday accused Iran of being behind plots to kill him.

Citing information reportedly given to him a day earlier by US intelligence, he said, “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. We're going to blow it to smithereens.”

There have, of course, been two known plots to kill Trump, one in July and one earlier this month.

But what do Iran’s leaders have to say about the matter?

“We don’t send people to assassinate people,” Iran’s Vice President for Strategic Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif told GZERO Media President Ian Bremmer on Wednesday during an interview for our nationally televised program GZERO World.

“I think that’s a campaign ploy in order to get former President Trump out of the not-so-favorable situation he’s in in the elections,” he said.

He also maintained that Iran doesn’t intervene in the internal affairs of other countries.

“It’s not for me to decide who is going to win in the American elections. That’s for the American people to decide. And Iran doesn’t have a preference in this election,” Zarif said.

Pressed by Bremmer about allegations that Iran was behind recent efforts to hack into US presidential campaigns, Zarif conceded that while the attacks may have originated from within the Islamic Republic, it was “hackers operating in Iran,” but “not on behalf of Iran.”

“We are ourselves victims of hacking,” he said.

Watch the clip here, and tune in next week for Ian Bremmer’s full interview with Zarif in the next episode of GZERO World, airing on PBS stations around the country. Check local listings.

GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).

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