America’s adversaries have long been wary of a Trump comeback, and it’s no wonder why. Donald Trump, during his presidency, had a certain knack for making the world’s bad actors feel more than a little uneasy. Take Iran, for example. The Islamic Republic squirmed under his “maximum pressure” campaign, which piled sanctions on top of an already crumbling economy.
Tehran would not be thrilled to see a man who famously had General Qassem Soleimani vaporized by a drone strike anywhere near the nuclear codes again. Iran, like other nations unfriendly to the U.S., likely prefers a more malleable figure in the Oval Office, someone willing to return to a softer approach of diplomacy.
But for now, the mullahs are holding their collective breath. Trump, who is just months away from a possible return, isn’t exactly known for his patience with regimes like Iran’s. And they know it. It’s not just the drone strikes and sanctions that have them sweating; it’s the idea that Trump could reemerge on the global stage and begin pushing them around again. For Iran, four more years of Trump would be like hitting the international relations equivalent of rush hour traffic—lots of horns, stress, and zero progress. So, it comes as no surprise that Iran has tried to interfere with the Trump campaign.
FBI and other US intelligence agencies revealed that Iran attempted to share stolen material it had hacked from the Donald Trump campaign with people who worked on the Biden-Harris campaign and is continuing to send material to media outlets. Trump slammed Kamala Harris in response, saying “She and her campaign were illegally spying on me.” [Source: The Post Millennial]
Trump on Iran hacking into the Trump campaign and sending the material to the Biden campaign:
"This is his is real election interference, not the phony crap that they've been trying to pin on me with Russia Russia Russia for years." pic.twitter.com/UHN4sh2lj1
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) September 19, 2024
Speaking of stress, the latest news out of Washington has added another layer of intrigue to the Trump saga. The FBI, alongside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), revealed that Iran had been meddling behind the scenes once again.
This time, the Iranian hackers didn’t just stop at espionage—they attempted to share stolen material from the Trump campaign with people connected to Kamala Harris’ campaign team. And yes, you can imagine Donald Trump had a thing or two to say about it.
In response to the revelations, Trump took to Truth Social, slamming Harris in a blistering post. “The FBI caught Iran spying on my campaign and giving all of the information to Kamala Harris’s campaign. Therefore, she and her campaign were illegally spying on me to be known as the Iran, Iran, Iran case.”
Trump didn’t stop there. At a rally shortly after the news broke, he described the situation as “real election interference,” contrasting it with what he called the “phony crap” surrounding the Russia allegations during his presidency.
Harris’s team, on the other hand, was quick to distance themselves from any involvement in the Iranian operation. Morgan Finkelstein, a spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign, stated that the emails in question were ignored and that no one within the campaign directly received or used the material.
According to Finkelstein, this was a classic phishing attempt, and the team had cooperated with law enforcement from the start.
Still, the Trump campaign isn’t letting this go without a fight. Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Trump’s camp, shot back, calling the Iranian interference “further proof” that adversaries like Iran prefer Biden and Harris in power.
“They know President Trump will restore his tough sanctions and stand against their reign of terror,” Leavitt said, suggesting that the current administration may be the preferred choice of foreign adversaries looking for an easier path.
As expected, Iran has denied everything, dismissing the claims of hacking and election interference as another example of “internal uproars” in the U.S. election cycle. But with congressional Republicans like Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) now asking questions about what exactly the Harris-Walz campaign did with the information, the controversy is far from over.
Whether this turns into another full-blown political scandal or just another skirmish in the endless war of accusations remains to be seen. One thing’s for sure: America’s enemies are watching closely, and Trump’s enemies are no less interested in what happens next.
Author: Bo Dogan
