Was Iran Plotting To Assassinate Trump?

**Jamie Rubin** (0:02)
This is a Global Production.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:05)
I think we should talk about the assassination plot. Here's yet another report of Trump potentially being in the crosshairs of the hardliners or whoever inside Iran.

**Jamie Rubin** (0:15)
Israel wants Trump to think the worst possible things about the Iranian regime. That's what they've done since the beginning.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:22)
The US, as you remember a week or so ago, apparently indirectly warned the Iranian negotiators that Israel might be planning to kill the top Iranian negotiators. It's a vicious cycle of plots and warnings and who knows what's going on.

**Jamie Rubin** (0:38)
There are very smart people trying to do something they think is good for their country, can come up with some of the most cockamamie ideas that I've ever heard. And this is a cockamamie idea.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:49)
I think Zelensky's counterattack into Russia is actually now impressing Trump, but Jamie Putin still shows no indication whatsoever that he's given up even his maximalist dreams.

**Jamie Rubin** (1:02)
When Hollywood tries to come up with scripts, they couldn't have come up with one like this.

**Christiane Amanpour** (1:11)
Hi everybody, welcome to the latest episode of The Ex Files with me, Christiane Amanpour, in London.

**Jamie Rubin** (1:17)
And Jamie Rubin in New York.

**Christiane Amanpour** (1:19)
So here are the questions we're going to try to pose and to answer. Iran's Trump assassination plot, how seriously should we take all that? How will Lindsey Graham's death, Senator Graham and Iran Hawke, affect the Iran war and US foreign policy more widely? And later on, does the far right in Europe threaten the future of NATO? Not to mention the far right in the United States, this growing movement, and we'll have our recommendations as well. So let's get to the Iran latest. Jamie, amidst all these questions we just posed and we're going to hopefully get to, is a real resumption of what you call, what you could call a hot war light, not a cold war, not a full scale hot war, but still a hot war.
Would you describe it as that?

**Jamie Rubin** (2:06)
I don't know whether a hot war light or a half war, half diplomacy, coercive diplomacy maybe would be the word that I would use. I think what's going on here is that both sides are limiting the types of military action they're taking in the hopes of returning to diplomacy, because I don't think either side wants a return to full scale war. The Trump administration seems to think that by attacking targets that are generally focused on the Strait of Hormuz, they can pressure the Iranians into opening the Strait of Hormuz. That hasn't happened yet. That was supposed to be the big result of this ceasefire agreement, the successful reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. And that's where I think the source of the problem is. The administration seems to think it can improve the Iranian actions by using force, and the Iranians seem determined to say, that's not going to happen. When you hit us, we hit you back.

**Christiane Amanpour** (3:04)
And on the other hand, the Iranians seem to be, even those who sort of realize that the American war game had not been gamed well enough and didn't work, really. But the Iranians may be in a state of over, over extending themselves, over negotiating and actually potentially finding themselves in a bit of a multi-headed hydra decision-making process inside. Listen, we'll talk about that in a moment. But first, I think we should talk about the assassination plot. Here's yet another report of Trump potentially being in the crosshairs of the hardliners or whoever inside Iran. So the latest one is about the apparently Israeli intelligence discovered some chatter that this was being considered. They did discover an actual plot, but that this was being considered.
How seriously should we take it? Trump has started talking about it now.

**Jamie Rubin** (4:04)
It's hard to know. I don't have access to this information anymore.
I will say this. It does look like that was the reason why they didn't use the new Air Force One when he left the last NATO summit.

**Christiane Amanpour** (4:18)
In Turkey, yeah.

**Jamie Rubin** (4:20)
Israeli intelligence is a complex thing.
We know that in certain occasions they have done amazing things. The pagers with Hezbollah to put the bombs in pagers and then be able to destroy foot soldiers or kill them or harm them.
Amazing things over the years, but they've also done terribly stupid things. Trying to poison Khaled Mashal and then having to give the antidote back. Believing, not believing that Hamas could attack them on October 7th. I mean, talk about an intelligence failure. So I think when we hear that something is Israeli intelligence, some people immediately assume it must be true. I've read and tend to think that this is a, yes, people talk about responding to the death of the Ayatollah, the Ayatollah Khomeini, and they talk about it, responding to it. But I tend to think that the Israeli intelligence report is more intended to influence than to inform.