U.S. President Donald Trump on the 28th local time claimed after carrying out airstrikes on Iran together with Israel that "Iran tried to interfere in the U.S. election."
Trump on this day posted on the social network Truth Social, saying, "Iran tried to interfere in the 2020 and 2024 elections to stop Trump, and now faces a new war with the United States," and shared a L.I.N.C to an article by the pro-Trump online outlet "Just the News" that ran with the same headline.
The outlet reported that "the Iranian regime sought in 2020 to weaken President Trump's bid for reelection, and Joe Biden won that election," adding that "in 2024 it carried out various attempts at election interference and even an assassination attempt."
It went on to say that when Trump in his first term in 2018 withdrew from the Barack Obama administration's Iran nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA) and increased pressure by designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, Iranian intelligence attempted to block Trump's reelection using tactics such as sending spoofed emails.
The outlet also cited an assessment released in 2024 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that "Iranian cyber actors used data on more than 100,000 voters (during the 2020 election period) for an operation impersonating the Proud Boys (a far-right group)."
It added that in the 2024 election, Iranian hackers not only sent confidential materials stolen from the Trump campaign to news outlets, but that Iran's IRGC was also behind an assassination plot targeting him.
It further said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), ODNI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) under the Department of Homeland Security said in a joint statement in August that year that "we observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity in this election cycle."
Earlier, in a video message released immediately after the strikes began, Trump limited his explanation for attacking Iran to the risks associated with its pursuit of nuclear arms. He argued, "They are putting the United States, our troops, overseas bases, and allies around the world in direct danger." However, taking his social media post into account, it is also interpreted that suspicion that Iran hindered his return to power and attempted to assassinate him was a key backdrop to the decision to strike.