Iran’s Shadow War on Trump: Rhetoric, Foiled Plots, and the Persistent Assassination Threat
For more than six years, the question of whether Iran is actively trying to kill Donald Trump has hovered over U.S. national security discussions. What began as public vows of revenge after the January 2020 drone strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani has evolved into a pattern of disrupted murder-for-hire schemes, intensified clerical calls for blood, and intelligence warnings that have forced extraordinary security measures around the American president. In the summer of 2026, with a U.S.-Israeli war against Iran still simmering and a fragile ceasefire repeatedly breaking down, the issue moved from background threat to front-page urgency. The short answer is that Iranian elements have repeatedly demonstrated both the intent and the operational interest in assassinating Trump. The longer answer requires separating open rhetoric, verified plots, and unverified intelligence.
The roots of the threat are not in dispute. When Trump ordered the strike that killed Soleimani, the powerful Quds Force commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Tehran declared the act an act of war and vowed revenge. Iranian officials, state media, and hardline clerics have treated Trump as a legitimate target ever since. That posture did not fade after Trump left office in 2021; it simply went underground. U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies tracked Iranian efforts to recruit proxies, including criminal networks inside the United States, to carry out surveillance and eventual attacks on Trump and other former officials associated with the Soleimani operation.
Concrete evidence of those efforts has appeared in federal courtrooms. In 2024, the Justice Department charged individuals linked to the IRGC in a murder-for-hire conspiracy that included plans to surveil and assassinate Trump while he was still a presidential candidate. One operative told investigators he had been instructed by Iranian handlers to develop a plan within days. Separate cases involved other IRGC-linked figures attempting to hire hitmen. In March 2026, a federal jury convicted Asif Merchant, a Pakistani national described by prosecutors as an IRGC-trained operative, of murder-for-hire and terrorism charges. Prosecutors said Merchant had been sent to the United States specifically to arrange political assassinations, including Trump’s. These cases demonstrated that Iran was not content with mere slogans; it was willing to expend resources and risk operatives on American soil.
The stakes rose sharply in 2026 after joint U.S.-Israeli strikes killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of senior Iranian officials at the outset of open conflict. The death of the long-ruling theocrat removed the ultimate decision-maker and installed his son Mojtaba in a far more precarious position. At Khamenei’s funeral ceremonies, the atmosphere of vengeance was unmistakable. Mourners carried large banners reading “We Will Kill Trump.” Chants against the American president filled the streets. Senior clerics associated with the Assembly of Experts issued a statement declaring the assassination of the “criminal American president” a religious duty, though the body’s secretariat later distanced itself and a significant minority of members declined to sign. Iranian newspapers ran images of Trump in the crosshairs under headlines proclaiming that revenge was certain. The new supreme leader himself has publicly affirmed that vengeance for his father’s death “will most certainly be carried out.”
Against this backdrop, Israel shared intelligence with the United States in early July 2026 claiming that Iran had developed a fresh, specific plan to assassinate Trump. The Wall Street Journal first reported the warning; CNN and other outlets confirmed that sources described a concrete plot rather than the more general threat stream U.S. agencies had already been monitoring. The precise details of the alleged scheme were never made public. What is clear is that American officials treated the information with seriousness. During the NATO summit in Turkey that same week, Trump was moved from Air Force One through an elaborate deception operation involving a catering truck and a decoy aircraft—an extraordinary precaution that underscored how real the perceived danger had become.
Trump himself addressed the threat repeatedly and without restraint. He told reporters he was “number one” on Iran’s kill lists, described Iranian leaders as “scum” and “evil, sick people,” and warned that any successful attempt on his life would trigger a devastating U.S. military response. In a Truth Social post, he declared that one thousand missiles were “locked and loaded” and that orders had already been given for a year-long campaign to “completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran” should the regime act on its threats. The rhetoric was characteristically maximalist, but it also reflected a genuine assessment that the threat was no longer theoretical.
Not every piece of intelligence has held up under independent scrutiny. A Reuters report in mid-August 2026 revealed that U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, had been unable to corroborate several specific Israeli warnings about Iranian plots against Trump over the previous year. Methods allegedly under consideration—sniper attacks, knife assaults at public events, even a shoulder-fired missile targeting the presidential aircraft—could not be independently verified. Turkish intelligence reportedly shared the same assessment regarding the threat that prompted the catering-truck evacuation in Ankara. This does not mean the broader threat is fabricated; it means that some of the more dramatic tactical claims remain unconfirmed by American sources.
Iran’s official response has been consistent denial of operational plots coupled with open embrace of the revenge narrative. Iranian foreign ministry spokesmen have dismissed the assassination claims as “psychological warfare” and politically motivated fabrications designed to justify further pressure on Tehran. At the same time, Iranian officials continue to describe vengeance for Soleimani and Khamenei as a legitimate national and religious duty. The regime has never walked back the public calls for Trump’s death that rang out at the funeral processions. This dual track—deny the operational details while endorsing the goal—is familiar to analysts who have tracked Iranian behavior for decades.
Capability remains a separate question from intent. Iran has a long history of assassinating dissidents and officials abroad, often through proxies or criminal intermediaries. Successfully killing a sitting U.S. president, however, is an order of magnitude more difficult. The Secret Service, military assets, and layers of intelligence coverage surrounding Trump are formidable. A failed attempt would almost certainly trigger the kind of overwhelming retaliation Trump has already promised. Iranian decision-makers, even those driven by ideology and blood feud, understand that calculation. That reality has not stopped them from probing, recruiting, and planning.
The cumulative picture is therefore clear. Iran has both the motive and a demonstrated track record of attempting to kill Trump. Public rhetoric from clerics, state media, and funeral crowds has been explicit. Multiple IRGC-linked plots have been disrupted by U.S. law enforcement. Israeli intelligence has flagged new operational interest, even if some specifics remain unverified by American agencies. Trump’s own security apparatus has adjusted procedures in response. Whether any future plot succeeds is an open and high-stakes question. What is no longer open to serious debate is that the Iranian regime’s desire to eliminate the American president who ordered Soleimani’s death, and who later oversaw the killing of Khamenei, remains active and lethal in intent.
In the broader context of the 2026 conflict, the assassination threat functions as both a genuine security problem and a psychological instrument. It raises the personal stakes for Trump, complicates diplomacy, and keeps the possibility of sudden escalation permanently on the table. For a regime that has lost its supreme leader and much of its senior military command, the pursuit of revenge against the man it holds most responsible is not a side project. It is central to the narrative of resistance the Iranian leadership continues to sell to its own population and to its remaining regional allies. The United States, for its part, has made clear that any successful attempt would be met with consequences far beyond anything seen so far in the current war. Both sides are playing a dangerous game in which the life of the American president has become one of the highest chips on the table.
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