Donald Trump said he hopes to be friendly with Iran just days after blaming the country for breaching his campaign’s internal communications in a hacking scheme during a press conference in Bedminster, New Jersey, on August 15.
When talking about his plan to restore world peace, he discussed the war in Ukraine and went on a tangent about Hamas, accusing Iran of funding the organization. He then said he told China and others that anyone who does business with Iran cannot work with the U.S.
Trump said, “I’m not looking to be bad to Iran, we’re going to be friendly, I hope, with Iran, maybe, but maybe not. But we’re going to be friendly I hope, we’re going to be friendly, but they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
He continued, “We were all set to make sure that they don’t have a nuclear weapon.”
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It comes after Trump’s campaign reported a breach of its internal communications and theft of documents, which were later leaked to Politico last week.
A previous report released by Microsoft identified Iranian hackers in a hacking attack targeting an unidentified official related to a U.S. presidential campaign.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, initially told Politico that the documents were obtained illegally “from foreign sources hostile to the United States.” He later suggested that Iran was behind the attack, saying, “The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House.”
Trump later posted on Truth Social confirming he believed Iran was behind the attack, and said, “We were just informed by Microsoft Corporation that one of our many websites was hacked by the Iranian Government – Never a nice thing to do!”
He continued, “They were only able to get publicly available information but, nevertheless, they shouldn’t be doing anything of this nature. Iran and others will stop at nothing, because our Government is Weak and Ineffective, but it won’t be for long,” The Guardian reported.
Newsweek has reached out to Microsoft for comment.
The Iranian government has denied any involvement in the hacking scheme and the U.S. government has not officially accused Iran of being behind it, according to the BBC.
The outlet reports that the FBI launched an investigation into Iran’s involvement in the breaching of communications and subsequent leak of internal campaign documents to media outlets, and is looking into whether other presidential campaigns have been affected.
Trump’s relationship with Iran worsened in 2018, following his removal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, more commonly known as the nuclear deal, and re-imposed sanctions lifted in Iran in 2016.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign for comment via email.
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