The U.S. government remains alert to Iranian threats against President Donald Trump, even here on U.S. soil, according to remarks by Mike Waltz, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former National Security Advisor, on Sunday. The Islamist regime in Tehran has plotted to assassinate Trump on at least two prior occasions, both in peacetime and wartime, and recently redoubled its rhetoric vowing Trump’s death.

“I won’t get into specific intelligence, but this regime, going all the way up to the ayatollah, has plotted to kill President Trump for many years,” Waltz said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “They have operatives here in the United States. Plots are ongoing. But our intelligence community, the FBI, our law enforcement entities are absolutely on top of it.”

The remarks followed reporting last week that Israeli officials had warned President Trump of a fresh Iranian plot against his life, although no official spokesperson confirmed this.

The report came as no surprise, given the Iranian regime’s open vendetta against Trump since his first term in office. Iran has vowed retaliation against Trump ever since he ordered the airstrike that killed IRGC general Qassem Soleimani in Iraq on January 3, 2020.

More recently, Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has a more personal cause for revenge, after his father and predecessor, Ali Khamenei, died amid Operation Epic Fury. In only his second public statement, Khamenei the Younger vowed vengeance for “the blood of all those martyred … by bringing the criminal and dishonorable killers to justice. … These criminals — whose names are known from top to bottom — will take to their graves the unfulfilled wish of dying peacefully in their beds.”

Attendees of Khamenei the Elder’s July 4 memorial ceremonies displayed a banner declaring, “We Will Kill Trump.”

Recent history has shown that Iranian attempts on Trump’s life are neither Israeli fiction, nor too low to stoop for a regime that has unwaveringly declared “Death to America” for the past 47 years.

On November 8, 2024, the Biden Justice Department (the same one that spent so many years persecuting Trump) announced an indictment against Farhad Shakeri, an Iranian national, for “a plot to murder a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin in New York,” as well as a plot to assassinate then-president-elect Donald Trump.

“According to statements made by Shakeri in recorded interviews with law enforcement agents, the IRGC has also tasked Shakeri with carrying out other assassinations against U.S. and Israeli citizens located in the United States,” the DOJ stated. “In particular, Shakeri has informed law enforcement that he was tasked on Oct. 7, 2024 with providing a plan to kill President-elect Donald J. Trump.” However, “Shakeri claimed he did not intend to propose a plan to kill Trump within the timeframe set by the IRGC.”

While the DOJ did arrest two co-conspirators, “Shakeri remains at large and is believed to reside in Iran,” the statement admitted. “Shakeri immigrated to the United States as a child and was deported in or about 2008 after serving 14 years in prison for a robbery conviction.” According to the DOJ, he “used a network of criminal associates he met in prison in the United States” to plan his attacks. However, due to his physical absence, the charges against Shakeri have never gone to trial.

On the other hand, the DOJ did obtain a conviction in the case of Asif Merchant. On March 6, 2026, the DOJ announced that a federal jury had convicted Merchant “of murder for hire and attempting to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries.” The Pakistani national was a trained IRGC operative who tried to recruit hitmen “to steal documents, stage a protest, and arrange the murder of one of three specific U.S. government officials,” including President Trump. In June 2024 (still under the Biden administration), Merchant paid a $5,000 advance to men he believed to be hitmen, but who were in fact undercover federal law enforcement officers.

Thus, the DOJ has publicly revealed at least two Iranian plots from 2024 to assassinate Donald Trump. Other less mature plots may have been foiled before attaining the same level of threat, and some may remain undisclosed to protect intelligence assets. In any event, the same regime that sought revenge on Trump in 2024 has much more reason to seek revenge now — and fewer inhibitions against making the attempt.

President Trump responded stoically to the report, suggesting his prior awareness of the threat or at least an acceptance of the risks attending his high station. “They want to take out the U.S. leader — me,” he told reporters in Ankara, Turkey, before the U.S. Secret Service insisted that he fly home on his old Air Force One, not the jet gifted by Qatar. “I’m on every list. I saw this morning, I’m on every single one of their lists. And so far, I guess I’ve been a little bit lucky, but that maybe doesn’t last very long.”

Trump has even gone so far as to give instructions about how much firepower to unload on Iran in the event that one of their assassination plots succeeds.

“1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat, pronounced in many corners of the Globe, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, the sitting President of the United States of America, in this case, ME!” Trump blasted out on Truth Social. “Orders have already been given, and the U.S. Military is ready, willing, and able, for a one year period of time, subject to extension, to completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran — PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!”

This reveals once again the spirit of defiance in the face of mortal peril that Trump displayed when he lifted a fist after being grazed by a would-be assassin’s bullet at an outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The renewed effort by Iran to assassinate a sitting U.S. president — even during a ceasefire — provides Americans with a fresh reminder that the Islamist regime in Tehran remains a mortal enemy of the United States. Theirs is an ideological hatred that cannot be placated by gifts of cash or appeased by endless diplomacy, or even military surrender. They want to destroy the United States. Although they lack the firepower to do so openly, they do not and will not show any qualms about stooping to use an assassin’s bullet.