Personal element? From WaPo

President Donald Trump for the first time acknowledged a personal dimension to his decision to attack Iran, citing the country’s efforts to assassinate him in 2024 as a factor in ordering the joint U.S.-Israeli operation that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“I got him before he got me,” Trump said in an interview on Sunday night with ABC News. “I got him first.”

Trump had not previously addressed how the Iranian threats to his life colored his thinking on taking the United States to war in the Middle East. Those threats, on top of the assassination attempts in July and September 2024, dominated his and his advisers’ experience of the fall 2024 campaign, with repeated security scares and emergency measures such as changing planes and motorcade routes.

The Iranian desire to kill Trump dates back to the U.S. airstrike that killed General Qasem Soleimani in January 2020. Federal prosecutors have charged two cases of alleged Iranian murder-for-hire schemes. No evidence has connected Iran with the two assassination attempts against Trump in 2024.

Trump suggested he sees a connection, telling ABC, “They tried twice.”

The White House did not provide evidence to support a connection.
“There are a million reasons to eliminate terrorists like Ayatollah Khamenei," a senior administration said on the condition of anonymity. "His plots to assassinate President Trump are just one reason.”

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