Speaking at a NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on 8 July 2026, US President Donald Trump publicly reflected on the possibility of his own violent death, telling world leaders that Iran wanted to assassinate him in a revenge plot. He said he was "on every single one of their lists" and that his luck "maybe doesn't last very long, because that's the way it goes". The remarks are significant because they came amid a sharp escalation in hostilities between the United States and Iran, with Trump having recently declared a ceasefire "over" and ordered fresh strikes on the regime.

The comments were made as hardline lawmakers in Tehran reportedly called for missiles to be fired at Trump's location at the summit, and after mourners at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's funeral were said to have placed a bounty on his head. Trump repeated the theme at a press conference alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other cabinet officials, describing himself as Iran's "number one target" and branding the country's leaders "scum". According to the report, Khamenei was killed during the war and a new set of leaders installed, while the renewed US strikes followed Iranian attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz; footage from the funeral reportedly showed demonstrators holding posters with crosshairs over Trump's face and the warning "Sooner or later, your heads will roll."