President Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday that he has left strict instructions if Iran were to ever assassinate him: Obliteration.
At the Oval Office, Trump told reporters he has signed an executive order that would impose maximum consequences on Iran, including sanctioning the countries oil export sales, to reduce it to nothing, according to the New York Post.
“If they did that, they would be obliterated. That would be the end,” Trump said. “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 noted he signed the executive order to prevent Iran from getting hold of nuclear weapons, something Tehran has promised to do for some time.
“With me, it’s very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
The Post further reported Iran has allegedly plotted to assassinate Trump and other officials in his administration during his first term in office in 2020. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and ex-national security adviser John Bolton were recently stripped of their security details, despite the threats from Iran also being directed at them.
In 2024, 62 House members asked former President Joe Biden to fully enforce U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil sales, after its exports doubled between 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,” the group wrote, per the Post.
The group added, “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.”