President Donald Trump said he authorized the strike that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei before Tehran could act on alleged plots against him, telling ABC: "I got him before he got me. They tried twice … I got him first."
The president’s blunt remark appears to link Khamenei’s killing to previously reported Iranian-backed assassination plots targeting Trump during the 2024 election cycle — plots that U.S. prosecutors tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The U.S.-Israeli operation that killed Khamenei marked the most dramatic escalation in years of tensions between Washington and Iran. Iranian state media confirmed the longtime supreme leader’s death after coordinated strikes targeted senior regime figures and key facilities around Tehran, Iran.
Trump has framed the strike as both a strategic blow to the Iranian regime and a personal reckoning with a government he says sought his life.
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Federal prosecutors in 2025 unsealed criminal charges against individuals accused of acting on behalf of the IRGC in alleged efforts to surveil and assassinate Trump. One case involved an Afghan national, Farhad Shakeri, whom authorities said was directed by Iranian contacts to track Trump’s movements and develop a plan to kill him in the closing weeks of the 2024 campaign.
In a separate case, prosecutors charged a Pakistani national, Asif Merchant, in what officials described as another Iranian-linked murder-for-hire plot connected to U.S. political figures, including Trump.
Iran has denied orchestrating assassination attempts against the president.
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U.S. officials long have warned that Iran vowed revenge after Trump ordered the 2020 drone strike that killed IRGC Quds Force commander Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad. Iranian leaders publicly pledged retaliation at the time, and U.S. intelligence agencies repeatedly have assessed that threats against Trump from Iranian actors remained elevated.
Trump’s comments suggest he views the killing of Khamenei as the culmination of that yearslong shadow conflict.
While the administration has not publicly detailed specific imminent threats tied to the strike, Trump’s statement underscores his argument that the move was justified not only as a matter of national security but also as a response to direct threats against him.
The fallout from Khamenei’s death remains uncertain. Iran’s succession process is opaque, and regional tensions are high as Tehran weighs its response. Security officials have historically warned that Iran is more likely to retaliate through proxy groups or asymmetric operations rather than through direct conventional confrontation.
For Trump, however, the message was simple: Tehran tried — and failed.
"I got him first," the president said.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Iran's permanent mission to the United Nations for comment.
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