WASHINGTON — President Trump said Tuesday that Iran will be “obliterated” if it assassinates him — saying he’s drafted an order to that effect if he dies.
“If they did that, they would be obliterated. That would be the end,” Trump said in the Oval Office as he signed an order to reimpose maximum pressure on Tehran.
“I’ve left instructions. If they do it, they get obliterated. There won’t be anything left, and they shouldn’t be able to do it. And Biden should have said that, but he never did. I don’t know why. Lack of intelligence, perhaps.”
Trump said that he was reluctantly signing the maximum-pressure order to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Iran allegedly has sought to assassinate Trump and various officials who served in his first administration as payback for the Trump-ordered assassination of Gen. Qasem Soleimani in 2020.
Despite the threat, Trump ordered the removal of the security details protecting former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and ex-national security adviser John Bolton.
The country’s theocratic leaders also allegedly hacked people associated with Trump in an attempt to undermine his 2024 candidacy.
Former President Joe Biden resisted bipartisan pressure to increase economic sanctions on Iran, including the country’s oil exports.
A group of 62 House members — including prominent Democrats Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell of California — last year asked Biden to fully enforce US sanctions on Iranian oil sales after those exports surged, roughly doubling annual export levels from 2019 and 2020.
“Iran now exports more than 1.4 million barrels of crude oil daily, over 80% of which goes to China. From February 2021 to October 2023, the regime has taken at least $88 billion from these illicit oil exports,” wrote the group.
“Iran is deriving significant economic benefits from pervasive sanctions evasion, with Iran’s annual economic growth increasing by more than four percent and net foreign currency reserves up by 45 percent.”
Congressional Republicans separately pleaded with Biden to cancel a sanctions waiver allowing Iraq to pay Iran for electricity, which they estimated would allow Iran access to $10 billion.
Biden in 2023 agreed to release $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil proceeds held by South Korea in exchange for the release from prison of five Iranian-Americans.
The funds were to be held by Qatar for Iran to purchase items such as food and medicine, but the US and Qatar reportedly reached a “quiet agreement” to pause distribution after Iran-backed Hamas terrorists massacred about 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023.
