Trump orders Iran to be ‘obliterated’ if it kills him, but open to meeting its leader

US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, February 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, February 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

US President Donald Trump says he’s given his advisers instructions to obliterate Iran if it assassinates him.

“If they did that they would be obliterated,” Trump says in an exchange with reporters while signing an executive order calling for the US government to impose maximum pressure on Tehran. “I’ve left instructions if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left.”

The Justice Department announced federal charges in November that an Iranian plot to kill Trump before the presidential election had been thwarted.

The department alleged Iranian officials had instructed Farhad Shakeri, 51, in September to focus on surveilling and ultimately assassinating Trump. Shakeri is still at large in Iran.

Trump also says he would be willing to meet with his Iranian counterpart to try to persuade Iran to give up Tehran’s perceived efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.

Trump also says Iran is too close to having a nuclear weapon and that the United States has the right to block the sale of Iranian oil to other nations.

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