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- In January 2026, a rumor spread online claiming that Iran’s government had issued a direct assassination threat to U.S. President Donald Trump.
- The claim originated from a report published by right-leaning tabloid the New York Post, which cited French agency Agence France Presse (AFP). The Post reported that Iranian state-run television broadcast a sign at a funeral for members of state security forces that read “this time, it will not miss the target,” calling it a “direct threat” to Trump from Iran’s government. The sign included a photograph of Trump from the July 2024 attempt on his life at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania.
- Snopes could not independently verify that the sign had appeared on Iranian state TV or that it constituted a direct threat from Iran’s government to Trump. We’ve reached out to Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (IRINN), the state-run channel in question, for further information and will update this story if we learn more.
- AFP did not suggest that the sign was a direct threat from Iran’s government toward Trump, contrary to some online claims.
In January 2026, a rumor spread online that Iran’s government had issued a direct assassination threat to U.S. President Donald Trump.
Several social media posts shared the claim, including one on Facebook that said Iran warned, “This time it will not miss the target,” referencing a previous assassination attempt on Trump:
(Facebook page Worldstar Hip Hop)
The rumor also gained traction on X and Reddit, with some posts claiming Iran’s state-run television channel had made the threat against Trump. Some posts gave different versions of the alleged quote, such as “This time bullet won’t miss target.”
Snopes readers searched our website to confirm whether the rumor was true.
The claim originated from an article published by right-leaning tabloid the New York Post on Jan. 14, 2026, alleging that Iran made a “sickening assassination threat against Trump.”
Citing French news agency Agence France Presse (AFP), the Post reported that Iranian state-run TV aired a photo of Trump from the assassination attempt at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, alongside the words, “This time it will not miss the target.”
The article included a purported screenshot of the broadcast that circulated widely on X. The image showed a sign featuring an authentic photograph of Trump with blood on his cheek taken during the assassination attempt in Butler, when a bullet hit his ear.
Words in Farsi, Iran’s official language, were also visible on the sign. According to the translation tool DeepL. the text translated to “This time, there will be no mistakes.” A person fluent in both Farsi and English also confirmed the translation.
(X user @AlinejadMasih)
According to the Farsi speaker, the white words on a blue background below the sign translated to, “Funeral procession for 100 shaheeds [martyrs] and security defenders.”
Snopes could not independently verify that Iran’s state-run television channel broadcast the sign or that it constituted a direct threat from Iran’s government to Trump. For these reasons, we left this claim unrated. We have contacted the channel in question, Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (IRINN), and will update this report if they respond.
We also reached out to experts on Iranian authorities’ methods of information warfare to ask if it is plausible that the Islamic Republic of Iran would issue such a threat in this manner. We await a response.
What AFP reported
As the Post noted, AFP reported on a funeral ceremony for members of the Islamic government’s security forces who died during confrontations between protesters and law enforcement in late 2025 and early 2026. AFP said several signs appeared during the ceremony. A section of the report read (emphasis ours):
At Wednesday’s funeral ceremony in Tehran, thousands of people waved flags of the Islamic republic as prayers were read out for the dead outside Tehran University, according to images broadcast on state television.
“Death to America!” read banners held up by people attending the rally, while others carried photos of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Another image could be seen at the rally showing Trump’s assassination attempt, captioned: “This time it will not miss the target.”
It appeared to be referring to the assassination attempt against Trump during a campaign rally in 2024.
In other words, AFP did not suggest that the sign was a direct threat from Iran’s government toward Trump, contrary to claims by the Post and some X users.
Some X users, including Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad (who says she survived assassination attempts by the Islamic Republic of Iran), said that no such image would appear on IRINN without the approval of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggesting it represented a direct threat (archived):
Islamic Republic State TV has just broadcast an image of Trump from the Butler rally after he was shot, alongside the message: “This time, it won’t miss.”
Let’s be absolutely clear: State TV in Iran run directly under the supervision of @khamenei_ir and nothing like this airs without approval from the very top of the regime.
We asked the IRINN for a response to Alinejad’s assertion, but did not receive one by the time of publication.
For further reading, Snopes has fact-checked a video purporting to show a demonstration in Iran in recent weeks.
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Anna Rascouët-Paz
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