{"id":356175,"date":"2026-09-24T23:26:40","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T23:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/356175\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T23:26:40","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T23:26:40","slug":"we-arent-trying-to-kill-trump-irans-president-insists-to-reporters-at-new-york-hotel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/356175\/","title":{"rendered":"We aren\u2019t trying to kill Trump, Iran\u2019s president insists to reporters at New York hotel"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n

\n Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian\u2019s media appearances in Iran are tightly controlled affairs.\n <\/p>\n

\n But on Thursday he sat down to face questions from a group of journalists in New York, where despite being the leader of a country at war with the United States, he is visiting with the protection of the US Secret Service.\n <\/p>\n

\n In the wide-ranging session, a day after addressing the UN General Assembly, Pezeshkian repeated familiar Iranian positions on the war, its nuclear program and dissent in Iran. He also talked about the effect of sanctions on the Iranian people, and claimed Iran would never try to kill Donald Trump \u2013 despite the president and US authorities accusing the regime of plotting his assassination.\n <\/p>\n

\n The comments were made at the Millennium Hilton hotel, a stone\u2019s throw from the UN headquarters where the Iranian president declared Wednesday that his country \u201cwill not bow down\u201d as the war with the US drags on.\n <\/p>\n

\n In the briefing, Pezeshkian also described recent meetings he had held with Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since the outset of the war, saying that the leader was \u201cquite healthy.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n There has been mounting speculation in recent months over Khamenei\u2019s health, after he was understood to have sustained serious injuries in the US-Israeli attack that killed his father and predecessor Ali Khamenei at the beginning of the conflict in February.\n <\/p>\n

\n Speaking about Khamenei\u2019s condition, Pezeshkian said, \u201cI did not see any major challenges with his health or physical appearance,\u201d adding that their most recent in-person meeting had taken place around one month ago and lasted around seven hours.\n <\/p>\n

\n Pezeshkian said the pair had sat on pillows on the ground and stood up to walk around during the meeting. US intelligence<\/a> assesses that despite his injuries Khamenei is still playing a critical role in shaping war strategy alongside senior Iranian officials, multiple sources familiar with the intelligence said in May.\n <\/p>\n

\n The presence of Iran\u2019s delegation in a country with which it remains at war is already virtually unprecedented.\n <\/p>\n

\n But this spectacle became increasingly unconventional on Thursday when the Iranian president and Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi briefed reporters including from CNN in a hotel function room in Midtown Manhattan.\n <\/p>\n

\"Iran's<\/p>\n

\n A State Department official said earlier this week that the visiting Iranian delegates were \u201cbeing admitted to the United States strictly for the purpose of representing the Islamic Republic of Iran before the United Nations\u201d and that they must \u201crestrict their activities to United Nations-related business only.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The Iranians \u201cmust seek and receive approval in advance\u201d from the State Department if they want to travel outside the vicinity of the UN headquarters, John F. Kennedy International Airport or Iran\u2019s UN mission facilities, the official said.\n <\/p>\n

\n In the briefing, Pezeshkian denied accusations that Iran was trying to kill the president, saying it has \u201cnever been the position [of the Iranian government], overtly or covertly, to seek to assassinate Trump or his family members.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Last month, the US Secret Service said it was aware of a video aired by Iran\u2019s state broadcaster appearing to threaten the life of Barron Trump<\/a>, the president\u2019s youngest son. This came after Israel shared intelligence with the US that Iran had devised a plan to assassinate Donald Trump. In late 2024, the US Justice Department announced federal charges<\/a> over what it described as a thwarted Iranian plot to kill Trump before the presidential election.\n <\/p>\n

\n Hard-line Iranian media have repeatedly featured content threatening the life of Trump and his family. During funeral events for the late Khamenei in July, regime loyalists were seen holding posters with the words \u201cKill Trump.\u201d Trump has publicly discussed the Iranian threats on his life too, saying in July: \u201cI\u2019m on whatever list \u2026 so far, I guess I\u2019ve been a bit lucky, but maybe that doesn\u2019t last very long. These are evil, sick people.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In response to Pezeshkian\u2019s comments, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said, \u201cThe Iranian regime has murdered thousands of its own people, killed Americans overseas, executed acts of terrorism in the Strait of Hormuz, and launched indiscriminate attacks against its neighbors in the region.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe president is courageously ensuring that such an evil country never possesses a nuclear weapon, which will make the entire world safer and more stable,\u201d Kelly said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Pezeshkian also discussed the domestic challenges facing Iran. US sanctions and the ongoing war have suffocated the country\u2019s economy<\/a>, sparking prices increases and shortages of basic necessities.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Iranian president also said in the session that Iran wants a deal, but that any agreement was not related to the timing of the US midterms.\n <\/p>\n

\n Separately, also on Thursday, Araghchi said Iran had presented a proposal to the US that \u2014 according to Iran \u2014 would re-open the Strait of Hormuz and restart negotiations toward a \u201cfinal deal.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The proposal, presented to the US through mediators this week, calls for the US to meet certain conditions within seven days to restart the talks and re-open the strait, Araghchi said. The foreign minister declined to elaborate on the conditions but said that they were \u201cnothing more\u201d than what was included in the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding.\n <\/p>\n

\n That agreement, which was reached by the two countries in June, included provisions on sanctions relief; the release of frozen assets; and a cessation of military operations, including in Lebanon.\n <\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

\n Iran\u2019s economy was in a dire state even before the war began, with the poor conditions a key driving factor behind the anti-regime demonstrations which kicked off in the Iranian capital city Tehran in 2025.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe have problems. Unprecedentedly difficult problems,\u201d Pezeshkian told reporters Thursday, while referring to US sanctions as a \u201csilent murderous campaign.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Much like in his Wednesday address to world leaders, Pezeshkian appeared confident in the briefing that Iran would prevail despite the challenges facing his country. He also insisted that US bases in the region were legitimate targets as they had been used to attack Iran.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cMost of the American bases in the region are no longer useable,\u201d he claimed.\n <\/p>\n

\n Iranian strikes damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at US bases across the Middle East region during the war\u2019s first months, according to an official Pentagon watchdog report<\/a> released earlier this month.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOf course, the US has the power to destroy anything anywhere, but it is impossible to bring about Iranian surrender,\u201d Pezeshkian said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian\u2019s media appearances in Iran are tightly controlled affairs. But on Thursday he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10],"class_list":["post-356175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}