President Donald Trump isn’t quite sure what to make of an Iranian regime figure’s imaginative assassination threat.
Trump... “can no longer sunbathe in Mar-a-Lago,” said Mohammad-Javad Larijani, a top adviser to Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Iranian TV Wednesday.
Larijani, the secretary general of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, laughed as he made the remark during a discussion about the country’s military technology, according to Newsweek, citing the London-based Iran International.
Trump was quizzed by Fox News’ Peter Doocy about the comment during a Q&A session at the White House.
“There is an Iranian official who says, you, President Trump, have done something that you can no longer sunbathe in Mar-a-Lago, as you lie there with your stomach to the sun a small drone might hit you in the navel,” Doocy said to Trump. “Do you think that’s a real threat—and when was the last time you went sunbathing?”
Addressing the sunbathing question first, the 79-year-old president said wistfully, “It’s been a long time. I don’t know, maybe I was around 7 or so. I’m not too big into it.”
As for whether he thought the Iranian regime—whose nuclear program he targeted with airstrikes last month—was actually making a threat, Trump employed his trademark mix of negations and affirmations to leave his answer ambiguous: “Yeah, I guess it’s a threat. But I’m not sure it’s a threat actually, but perhaps it is.”
At the height of the Israel-Iran conflict in June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on Fox News that Iran “tried to assassinate President Trump twice” through proxies.
Trump in turn claimed that he knew “exactly where” Khamenei was in hiding.
“He is an easy target, but is safe there—We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” he wrote on Truth Social four days before ordering the bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites.
Later, he boasted that he had saved the Iranian leader from a “very ugly and ignominious death.” Trump reportedly vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei.
Trump helped broker a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran after claiming the U.S. strikes “totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities—a claim contradicted by intelligence leaks and nuclear experts.
The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog told CBS News that it expects Tehran will be able to restart enriching uranium again “in a matter of months.”
