Many recall that President Donald Trump signed a broad executive order aimed at Iran in February 2025, warning then that he had left instructions for the country to be “obliterated” if he were ever assassinated. “I’ve left instructions. If they do it, they get obliterated; there won’t be anything left,” Trump said at the signing event.
More than a year on, with the United States now engaged in open conflict with Iran, that earlier warning has been met with a reciprocal threat — and Tehran’s longstanding efforts to target Trump have become more urgent and direct.
On March 10, 2026, amid escalating U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, Iran’s top national security official issued what analysts described as the most explicit public threat against a sitting U.S. president in recent memory. Ali Larijani, who was head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and a key figure in the clerical leadership until his own assassination on March 17, 2026, threatened President Trump with assassination in a post on X, writing: “The freedom-loving nation of Iran is not afraid of your hollow threats. Even those who were mightier than you have failed to destroy the Iranian nation. Watch yourself — or you’ll be eliminated.”
The warning followed a Truth Social post by Trump saying Iran would be struck “TWENTY TIMES HARDER” if it disrupted oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. Larijani’s message, issued on behalf of the Supreme National Security Council, also referenced the recent death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Trump downplayed the threat in an interview with CBS News, saying he “couldn’t care less.”
After Khamenei’s death on February 28 — the first day of the joint U.S.-Israeli operation against Iran — Larijani had publicly vowed on television to hold Trump personally accountable for the supreme leader’s death.
As Iran issued new threats, U.S. forces were simultaneously targeting the network Iran used to plot against Trump. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed that the leader of the Iranian cell tied to an earlier assassination attempt on Trump had been killed by U.S. strikes. Hegseth stated, “Iran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump got the last laugh.”
On March 2, Trump addressed the killing directly: “I got him before he got me. They tried twice. Well, I got him first,” linking the assassination attempts to broader U.S. actions against Iranian leaders.
Although Hegseth did not identify the individual, Israeli journalist Amit Segal named the person on X as Rahman Mokadam, who reportedly led the IRGC’s special operations division.
The public warning from Larijani followed a significant legal development in the U.S. Asif Merchant, a Pakistani national alleged to have been trained by the IRGC, was convicted in a conspiracy to assassinate Trump. U.S. security officials had warned the Trump campaign about Iran’s active targeting efforts and suspected operatives believed to be operating inside the United States.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi commented on the verdict: “This man landed on American soil hoping to kill President Trump — instead, he was met with the might of American law enforcement.” FBI Director Kash Patel noted the case was not Iran’s first attempt to harm Americans domestically.
Court documents revealed how far Iran’s influence reached. Newly released undercover video shown in a Brooklyn courtroom depicted an alleged Iran-linked operative describing the 2024 plot, placing a vape pen on a napkin to represent his target and asking: “This is the target. How will it die?”
The threats against Trump go back to January 2020, when he ordered the Baghdad drone strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force. Iranian leaders have repeatedly vowed revenge for Soleimani’s death, naming Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as targets.
Trump’s security detail has treated these threats as serious for years. After the second assassination attempt on Trump in Florida in 2024 — an attack not linked to Iran — his protection team was sufficiently alarmed by the Iran threat that he was escorted to an event aboard a decoy plane owned by Steve Witkoff.
The Justice Department has documented multiple alleged Iranian plots against Trump and other former officials over time, including a 2022 plan aimed at former National Security Adviser John Bolton.
What began as Trump’s “obliterate” warning — issued earlier as a deterrent — increasingly appears less hypothetical and more like an active policy unfolding.
