A chilling Iranian-made video from 2022 that depicts an assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump while he plays a round of golf resurfaced Wednesday after the Republican nominee revealed that Tehran is behind ongoing plots to take his life.
The video, posted to Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei’s website on Jan. 14, 2022, is an early warning of Iran’s long-held goal of retaliation against Trump and members of his former administration – including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and ex-national security adviser John Bolton – for the US-directed assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani on Jan. 3, 2020.
The animation opens on an image of an American flag waving in the breeze above Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago in West Palm Beach, Fla., before zooming in on the 45th president swinging a golf club as advisers including Pompeo look on.
As Trump, 78, lines up a shot, a remote-controlled weapon rolls into view, piloted by Iranian operators who hacked Mar-a-Lago’s security system to let it onto the property.
The robotic system – which is depicted to include cameras and targeting lasers – then closes in on Trump and Pompeo, targeting them “Minority Report”-style with red squares as the phrases “GUN: READY and “LASER: READY” appear on the screen.
That’s when an Iranian special operator in a distant location is shown sending a text message reading: “Soleimani’s murderer and the one who gave the order will pay the price.”
The animation then pans to an overhead view of Trump – wearing his famed red Make America Great Again hat – as the shadow of what appears to be a drone or bomber looms above him.
An animated Iranian special operator then hacks the platform and presses a red button, insinuating that he launched a strike taking out Trump and Pompeo before cutting to a black screen.
The animation then ends as the words “Revenge is Definite” appear on the screen.
The alarming video won the Ayatollah’s animation contest that year that called for work “on the topic of revenge on Trump [former Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo and the murderers of Gen. #Soleimani,” according to the website.
It resurfaced Wednesday after Trump’s campaign revealed he was briefed Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him in an effort to destabilize and sow chaos in the United States,” according to spokesperson Steven Cheung.
While Mar-a-Lago itself does not have a golf course, the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach, about five miles away, is regularly used by the former president – and was the scene of the most recent assassination attempt on his life.
On Sept. 15, a Secret Service agent on advance patrol allegedly spotted would-be assassin Ryan Routh’s gun poking through bushes off the 6th hole while the former commander-in-chief was playing the preceding hole.
Routh, 58, fled the scene after the agent opened fire, but was apprehended a few hours later. He now faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
The similarity was enough to inspire Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) to share the animation to X, calling it “truly, terrifyingly chilling.”
Routh’s attempt followed Thomas Matthew Crooks’ attempted assassination of Trump at a rally in Butler, Pa. July 13. Crooks fired off eight rounds — striking the former president’s ear, killing attendee Corey Compertore and injuring two others before Secret Service counter-snipers killed the shooter.
While it’s unclear whether Iran was behind either of those attacks, Trump on Wednesday said it was possible.
“There have been two assassination attempts on my life that we know of, and they may or may not involve, but possibly do, Iran, but I don’t really know,” he told supporters in Mint Hill, NC.
Just a day before the Butler shooting, Pakistani national Asif Merchant was arrested and charged with paying $5,000 advances to men he believed to be contract killers, likely to target Trump or other US politicians on behalf of Tehran.
While Routh was a radical leftist who wrote about his hatred for Trump, investigators have not yet confirmed Crooks’ motive.
The FBI last month told CBS News that it was having trouble decrypting Crooks‘ messaging accounts on platforms based in Belgium, New Zealand and Germany on his two cell phones.
The accounts raised speculation at the time, with Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) telling reporters: “Why does a 19-year-old kid who is a health care aide need encrypted platforms not even based in the United States, but based abroad — where most terrorist organizations know it is harder for our law enforcement to get into?”
