An Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) video explicitly targeted President Donald Trump by name while explaining that the regime’s notorious “Death to America” chant now specifically means “death to Trump,” directly contradicting Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s claims just one day earlier that the slogan only refers to U.S. policies, not individuals.
The IRGC video, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and released Tuesday, represents a brazen escalation in Iran’s rhetoric against the Trump administration, coming just one day after Araghchi attempted to downplay the regime’s violent messaging during a Fox News interview on Monday.
In the video, posted to the IRGC’s Telegram channel, a female speaker delivers an extended justification for the regime’s “Death to America” slogan before targeting Trump specifically. “What does ‘Death to America’ mean exactly?” the speaker asks before launching into a litany of historical grievances. “‘Death to America’ means wishing death upon the people who committed the barbaric genocides against the indigenous Americans. ‘Death to America’ means wishing a despicable death upon the people who enslaved the blacks for hundreds of years, and treated them in the most inhumane manner.”
The speaker continues her anti-American diatribe, claiming the chant means “expressing disgust and hatred towards the people involved in dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki” and “wishing annihilation upon the people who killed many innocent people in the U.S.-Vietnam war, and raped thousands of Vietnamese women.”
After cataloguing alleged American crimes spanning centuries, the IRGC video builds to its central threat: “‘Death to America’ means death to the American presidents, cabinet members, and senators, whose hands are soiled in the blood of millions of innocent people.” The video concludes by pointedly stating: “Right now, ‘Death to America’ means death to Trump, to be exact.”
In his Fox News appearance the day before the IRGC video’s release, Iran’s top diplomat told anchor Bret Baier: “We have always said, the supreme leader and other officials in Iran have always said that Death to America is, in fact, death to the hegemonic policies of the United States, not to the people of the United States.”
“Yes, there are some, perhaps, radicals, persons or groups here and there in different places, inside, outside of Iran, who may say something like what you said, but that has never been our policy, and they will never be our policy in the future,” Araghchi proclaimed, specifically denying Iran’s official position involves assassinating Trump or previous administration officials. The foreign minister claimed Iran’s policy does not involve killing “anybody outside Iran, let alone the president of another country.”
The IRGC video directly contradicts these diplomatic assurances, with the regime’s elite military force openly stating their deadly intentions toward the American president by name. Araghchi’s Fox News appearance represented Iran’s latest attempt to manage international perception while the regime’s military apparatus simultaneously broadcasts explicit assassination threats.
The brazen threat comes amid escalating tensions following President Trump’s recent military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, which prompted senior Shiite clerics in Iran to issue fatwas, or religious edicts, condemning Trump as a mohareb, or warlord who fights against Allah, and calling for his execution.
The Revolutionary Guard Corps, designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, has previously produced propaganda videos threatening American officials, including elaborate animations depicting the assassination of Trump and other senior defense officials in retaliation for the 2020 killing of Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of the IRGC’s elite Quds Force.
Earlier this year, President Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he had “left instructions” to wipe out Iran if the regime attempted to kill him, responding to the regime’s increasingly open threats. The coordinated campaign of state-sponsored incitement, clerical edicts, and assassination plots targeting Trump administration officials continues to raise serious concerns in Washington about how to address Iran’s escalating aggression.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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