Trump Responds to Iran’s Threats Against Him

The president promised harsh repercussions against the Islamic Republic, as the war of words between Washington and Tehran continues.

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on the one-year anniversary of his second inauguration during a White House briefing in Washington on Jan. 20, 2026. Travis Gillmore/The Epoch Times

President Donald Trump has warned Iran that he will wipe the country off the face of the Earth if its regime follows through on any of its threats against him.

When asked in an interview with News Nation on Jan. 20 about his response to the Islamic Republic’s continued taunts and threats against him, Trump said he had left a notification that if anything were to happen to him, “the whole country is going to get blown up.”

“A president has to defend a president,” he said.

“Like, if I were here, and they were making that threat to somebody even, not even a president, but somebody, like they did with me, I would absolutely hit them so hard.

“But I have very firm instructions—anything happens, they’re going to wipe them off the face of this Earth.”

The president’s comments follow repeated jibes and menaces directed at him and the United States from the regime in Tehran amid the protests that have rocked the nation since before the turn of the year.

Most recently, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that the Islamic Republic will be “firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack,” in an opinion piece published by The Wall Street Journal on Jan. 20.

Discussing the protests, Araghchi said that “the violent phase of the unrest lasted less than 72 hours” and again blamed armed demonstrators for the violence.

“Unlike the restraint Iran showed in June 2025, our powerful armed forces have no qualms about firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack,” Araghchi wrote, referring to the 12-day war between Israel and Iran last year.

“This isn’t a threat, but a reality I feel I need to convey explicitly, because as a diplomat and a veteran, I abhor war.

“An all-out confrontation will certainly be ferocious and drag on far, far longer than the fantasy timelines that Israel and its proxies are trying to peddle to the White House. It will certainly engulf the wider region and have an impact on ordinary people around the globe.

“Iran’s message to President Trump is clear: The U.S. has tried every conceivable hostile act against Iran, from sanctions and cyber assaults to outright military attack—and, most recently, it clearly fanned a major terrorist operation—all of which failed. It is time to think differently. Try respect, which will allow us to advance farther than one may believe.”

Araghchi’s op-ed follows previous threats from Tehran, including the suggestion by Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that Trump would “fall” like the biblical and Quranic figures Pharaoh and Nimrod, and the former Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Iranian state TV has also prominently featured the slogan “This time, [the bullet] won’t miss [the target],” referencing the July 2024 assassination attempt on Trump while he spoke at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

On the ground in Iran, the death toll from the protests has risen to 4,519, according to U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). The group added that it is still investigating 9,049 other possible fatalities, with the vast majority of the deceased having been protesters.

The death toll, if accurate, has exceeded that of any unrest in the Islamic Republic for decades, and it even outstrips the figure attributed to the 1979 revolution, which brought the current regime to power.

In addition, HRANA reports that authorities have made at least 26,314 arrests since the outbreak of protests in December.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.