Iran was behind both assassination attempts on Trump, Israeli PM Netanyahu claims in bombshell interview
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made some bombshell claims about the multiple assassination attempts on President Donald Trump's life last year.
In a Fox News interview with Brett Baier on Sunday, June 15, the longtime Israeli leader accused Iran of being behind not one, but both the failed assassination attempts on Trump during his third White House run last year.
Israeli Prime Minister @netanyahu on intel of Iranian attempts to assassinate President @realDonaldTrump-- "he's enemy number one.." and on when he let President Trump know of the plans for launching the strikes #FoxNews #SpecialReport #Israel pic.twitter.com/l2xX10ZwfH
— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) June 15, 2025
Iran wants to eliminate Donald Trump, claims Benjamin Netanyahu
“These people who chant, ‘Death to America,’ tried to assassinate President Trump twice,” Netanyahu claimed while defending Israel’s recent military actions against Iran.
He added that Iran sees Trump as its biggest obstacle to getting nukes, and that’s why they tried to take him out. “Do you want these people to have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to your cities?” he asked. “Of course not. So we’re defending ourselves, but we’re also defending the world.”
Baier pressed for more. “You just said Iran tried to assassinate President Trump twice,” the anchor said. “Do you have intel that the assassination attempts on President Trump were directly from Iran?”
“Through proxies, yes. Through their intel, yes. They want to kill him," Netanyahu responded.
While US intelligence agencies haven’t officially pointed fingers at Iran for the attempts on Trump’s life, Netanyahu’s accusation comes months after Trump himself suggested the same thing in a September speech. Iran, for its part, has denied everything.
Netanyahu even cracked a dark joke about being on Iran’s hit list, too—but made it clear that Trump is the real prize. “Look, they also tried to kill me,” he said, with a chuckle. “But I’m his junior partner. They understand that President Trump is a great threat to Iran’s plans to weaponize nuclear weapons and use them.”
It's worth noting that last November, US federal authorities accused an unnamed Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard agent of hiring 51-year-old Farhad Shakeri to “focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating” Trump. According to the feds, money was not an issue.
Donald Trump’s assassination attempts
Donald Trump’s third campaign trail was anything but smooth. The president barely dodged death twice last summer, and both attempts still haunt his supporters and the Secret Service.
On September 15, police arrested a man named Ryan Routh at the Trump International Golf Club, armed with a semi-automatic rifle.
But it was what happened a month earlier in Butler, Pennsylvania, that really shook the nation. During a campaign rally, a bullet aimed at Trump’s head just missed by a hair, grazing his ear in what he later described as a miracle.
“The doctor at the hospital said he never saw anything like this, he called it a miracle,” Trump told the New York Post in July. “I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead.”
He said he survived only because he turned his head slightly to the right to glance at a chart on illegal immigration. That was enough to turn a headshot into a graze.
The bullet tore off a piece of his ear and left blood on his forehead and cheek.
Donald Trump recalls the chaos at Butler rally
As the Secret Service rushed a wounded Trump off the stage, he still wanted to address his supporters—but the agents weren’t having it.
They told him it wasn’t safe and that they had to get him to a hospital, with the POTUS noting how the agents charged in like NFL "linebackers.”
He revealed a massive bruise on his right forearm and said the impact was so intense, his shoes flew off despite them being tightly fitted.
“The agents hit me so hard that my shoes fell off, and my shoes are tight,” he said with a smile. Trump can be heard saying in video footage of the scene, “Wait, I want to get my shoes,” as agents hustle him away.
The shooter, a young engineering student named Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed on the spot by a Secret Service sniper. His motive remains unclear, but one bizarre detail emerged later.
Routh, who was arrested in September for the previous attempt on Trump's life, claimed ties to Crooks in a rambling four-page jailhouse letter. In it, he railed against America’s “two-party system.
