Iran’s president denies claim that Iran tried to assassinate Trump

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says his country 'never' plotted to assassinate President-elect Trump and affirmed that 'we never will.'

Pezeshkian made the statement during an interview with NBC News' Lester Holt on Tuesday in Tehran. U.S. intelligence authorities had stated that Iran was exploring an attempt on Trump's life prior to Election Day. 

'This is another one of those schemes that Israel and other countries are designing to promote Iranophobia. ... Iran has never attempted to nor does it plan to assassinate anyone. At least as far as I know.'

'You’re saying there was never an Iranian plot to kill Donald Trump?' Holt asked.

'None whatsoever,' Pezeshkian replied. 'We have never attempted this to begin with, and we never will.'

The statement comes as Trump's incoming special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Ret. Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, recently stated that the United States must return to the policy of 'maximum pressure' on Iran.

'For the United States, a policy of maximum pressure must be reinstated, and it must be reinstated with the help of the rest of the globe, and that includes standing with the Iranian people and their aspirations for democracy,' Kellogg said.

The retired lieutenant general said that Iran’s development and acquisition of a nuclear weapon would be the most destabilizing event for the Middle East. Kellogg reminded the opposition group that then-President Trump walked away from the Iran nuclear deal during his first term, even with opposition from those who served in the first administration.

Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, during his first term in 2018 and reapplied crippling economic sanctions. While some, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, applauded the move, the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany had urged the president to remain committed to the deal.

Kellog's remarks, made just days before Trump is set to take office for his second term, are yet another signal of how a second Trump administration will face the threat posed by Iran in a new environment with much of the Middle East embroiled in conflict since the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel.