Donald Trump appeared almost buoyant as he vowed days more of strikes in the name of global stability while declaring Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was dead.
The self-styled 79-year-old “peace president” wrote in a Truth Social post Saturday that “The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”
Trump started the post by bragging, “Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead.”
“This is not only Justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans, and those people from many Countries throughout the World, that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty THUGS.”
He claimed the Iranian leader had been unable to evade “our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems,” adding that Israel had worked “closely” with the United States in the operation.
Trump framed the killing as an opening for regime change, calling it “the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country.”
He said members of Iran’s IRGC, military, and police were “looking for Immunity from us.”
“As I said last night, ‘Now they can have Immunity, later they only get Death!’” he wrote.
Trump went further, declaring that “the Country has been, in only one day, very much destroyed and, even, obliterated,” before promising the campaign was far from over.“
What’s actually happening inside Iran, however, is increasingly hard to verify as the country has plunged into a near-total internet blackout, according to monitoring group NetBlocks.
No one has claimed responsibility for the latest blackout, but the regime itself pulled the plug and blamed “enemy cyberattacks” during the 12-day war with Israel in June.
As bombs fell, the White House insisted Trump was working the diplomatic circuit. In a post on X, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president had spoken with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the U.A.E, as well as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Minutes later, she added that he had also spoken to the leaders of the U.K., Turkey, and Kuwait.
Reporters were later told that Trump would not appear on camera or in person for the rest of the day. The White House offered no explanation.
There has been no formal statement from Tehran responding to Trump’s claim that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been killed.
Instead, Ayatollah Khamenei’s official X account shared an image portraying a cleric grasping a flaming sword.
