Trump appears to link Iran attack to his 2020 election loss | US-Israel war on Iran
Donald Trump on Saturday appeared to link the massive attack he ordered on Iran to his continued claims about his 2020 election defeat by former President Joe Biden, in a social media post regarding allegations that Tehran’s government interfered in the US presidential election.
“Iran attempted to interfere in the 2020 and 2024 elections to stop Trump,” its Truth Social article said, “and now faces a renewed war with the United States.”
Those words, written in the early hours of the bombing of Iran, were the title of an article he referenced from Just the News, a pro-Trump news site. “Iranian intelligence sought to undermine Trump’s 2020 re-election bid through various electoral influence efforts,” the article said. He also said Iran worked against him in 2024, when he defeated Kamala Harris in the election.
This is the second military operation by the Trump administration in which he has alluded to allegations regarding the 2020 election. He made similar comments on social media in January, days after Trump ordered the Delta Force’s “rendering” of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Trump reposted links repeating discredited conspiracy claims that Venezuela interfered in the 2020 election by controlling voting machines.
Previously, he hinted at support for these theories in an article, linking to a podcast on the Venezuela theory and writing: “We must focus all our energy and power on ELECTION FRAUD!! » As the Guardian reported in November, Trump’s Justice Department last year began investigating the long-discredited Venezuela theory.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Although a central principle of The Maga movement’s America First doctrine is an aversion to foreign wars, another central Maga obsession has been digging into Trump’s electoral grievances.
While Venezuela’s allegations have not been considered credible by experts, Iran has indeed been accused of election interference, including by top officials in the Biden era.
In August 2024, in the heat of the presidential campaign, officials said Iran was responsible for hacking internal Trump campaign files that appeared to have been sent to journalists. One document included research on JD Vance. The FBI, ODNI and CISA wrote that Iran carried out the hack “to compromise former President Trump’s campaign,” and said the intelligence community “believes that the Iranians, through social engineering and other efforts, sought to gain access to individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties.”
Three suspected Iranian hackers were subsequently indicted.
It is also true that in 2020 Officials said Iran was behind a bizarre email hoax in which registered Democratic voters received threatening emails asking them to vote for Trump. The emails were crudely falsified to make it appear they came from the far-right group Proud Boys, but were later attributed to Iran.
Despite this, there is no known evidence that Iran actually played a key role in Trump’s election defeat in 2020. But among believers, Iran is also a player in some of the wildest conspiracy theories. A recent book titled Stolen Elections, which reiterates Venezuela’s allegations, lists Iran among countries allegedly helping Venezuela rig remotely elections. “Iran,” the book says, “provides technical advice and computer engineers.”
