“I may be gone too, because I’m their No. 1 target.” Donald Trump said that to reporters at the NATO summit in Ankara on Wednesday, minutes after he had called Iran’s leaders “scum.”
The remarks came as his ceasefire deal with Tehran was coming apart. The Guardian reported that fighting between the two countries had resumed. Iran accused Washington of breaking the agreement after the U.S. military struck near the Strait of Hormuz and withdrew a temporary sanctions waiver covering Iranian oil exports. Oil prices rose 3% straight away. A truce had taken effect in April, but both sides had been trading violations since.
What Trump said
Trump told the summit the memorandum of understanding with Iran was over. He described the country’s leaders as “vicious, violent people” he would not deal with. He still seemed to suggest talks would go on.
Describing the Iranian leadership, he said successive tiers had been killed since the war began, in strikes he ordered five months ago. Then he turned to his own safety. “I’m the No. 1, because they’re scum,” he said. “That’s the way they act, and that’s the way they’ve done it for 47 years, but I’m doing what’s right for the country.”
His view of the men now running Tehran was mixed. He called them “a little loco” and “a little crazy,” yet said his negotiators were “dealing with great people” on the Iranian side. “Level one is gone, level two is gone. This is level three. I think they are more rational,” Trump said, before appearing to take it back by noting that Iran had recently attacked shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Asked why he brought up the threat at all, he called the presidency “a very dangerous profession” and said he does not fear death because he is “doing my job.” He added that he would rather be ranked “No. 1” on TikTok than at the top of Iran’s “list for killing.”
The record behind the claim
Trump’s fear of assassination by Tehran traces to his order for the drone strike that killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander General Qassem Soleimani. Iranian officials have previously denied plotting to kill U.S. figures.
A federal court has since heard a case on the subject. In March, a federal jury in New York convicted Pakistani national Asif Merchant of murder-for-hire and terrorism charges over an IRGC-directed plot to assassinate a senior U.S. political figure during the 2024 campaign. The Justice Department said Merchant admitted the IRGC sent him to the United States to arrange the killing; the plot was foiled before any attack. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said he “landed on American soil hoping to kill President Trump…instead, he was met with the might of American law enforcement.”
Separately, Trump has survived three assassination attempts since the 2024 campaign began. A gunman fired at a Butler, Pennsylvania, rally in July 2024; a bullet came within inches of killing him, and a Secret Service counter-sniper killed the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. Weeks later, agents arrested Ryan Routh near Trump’s West Palm Beach golf club, hiding with a rifle. Routh was sentenced to life in prison in February. In April, Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, ran a security checkpoint at the Washington Hilton, where the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was being held, with a shotgun and a pistol. He was charged with attempting to assassinate the president, and a Secret Service officer hit in the chest was saved by a ballistic vest.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte backed the U.S. strikes. “When you have a ceasefire and Iran is basically violating the ceasefire,” he said, a forceful U.S. response was warranted. The U.S. military said it hit more than 80 targets early Wednesday after Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels in the strait. Iran answered with attacks on U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait, and the Revolutionary Guard said 85 facilities were targeted.
Sources
- First Thing: Trump calls Iran’s leaders ‘scum’ and declares fragile ceasefire over
- Trump Brands Iran 'Scum' as He Declares Himself Top Assassination Target at NATO Summit
