President Donald Trump said Friday he has left instructions for a major military response if Iran carries out threats to kill him. The remarks followed prominent calls for his assassination at state funerals for former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Trump told the New York Post that he has been on Iranian lists for a long time. “The only thing is, I’ve left instructions — if anything happens, to just literally bomb them at levels that they’ve never seen before,” he said.
Threats appeared during multi-day ceremonies across Iran and Iraq this week. A banner reading “We Will Kill Trump” was carried in a procession to the Shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad on Thursday. On July 5, poet Mohammad Rasouli asked crowds why the “most bastard man in the world” was still alive and led chants declaring “Trump’s murder is our responsibility.”
The displays occurred amid ongoing U.S.-Iran exchanges. American forces struck more than 100 Iranian-linked targets this week, while Iran attacked U.S. installations and shipping. Trump announced on Friday that Iran had requested continued talks but stated the ceasefire is over.
