Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, recently posted an animated video to his website depicting former President Donald Trump getting nailed by a drone strike.
Featuring Call of Duty-style graphics, the video shows a clueless Trump hanging out at his Mar-a-Lago golf resort in Palm Beach, while an Iranian drone operator locks onto the former President’s location to guide what we can only assume is a heat-seeking missile down onto his head.
The video, which appears to have been generated via some sort of Iranian state-backed contest, was shared widely on social media. You can check it out below:
Officials in #Iran have released a 3D animated video depicting the targeting of former President Donald Trump at his Mar-A-Lago golf course. This sequence is in revenge for killing IRGC General Qasem Soleimani. pic.twitter.com/2h1giUrlFx
— Jake Hanrahan (@Jake_Hanrahan) January 13, 2022
The fictional execution in the video happens to reference a real one: the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the much beloved general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and commander of its elite Quds Force, who was assassinated by the Trump administration in January of 2020 via a targeted drone strike at Baghdad International Airport.
Khamenei’s video was put out some nine days after the anniversary of Soleimani’s death and, in the video, the drone operator can be seen getting instructions to make sure that “those who killed Soleimani and the ones who gave the order” “pay the price” for what they’ve done. The video also shows Trump and his fellow golfers receiving a text message notifying them that they are about to be blown to smithereens.
The killing of Soleimani caused an outpouring of grief in Iran, and was also broadly criticised in the international community as an unnecessary operation — and potentially illegal. The Trump administration defended its decision to kill Soleimani, claiming that the general was in the process of “plotting imminent and sinister attacks” on American personnel at the time of his death.
Since the time of Soleimani’s death, Khamenei has made numerous not-so-veiled threats against Trump and those who ordered the general’s assassination. About a year ago, the Supreme Leader tweeted out a picture that similarly showed Trump on his golf course with the shadow of what looks like a Predator drone looming over his head.
Concerning for Trump? Uh, probably not. Still, it’s never fun to have someone go to the trouble of animating depictions of your demise and then share them with the world.
On Thursday, Biden Administration press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about the video during a press conference and said that the video was “offensive” but couldn’t specify whether the U.S. intelligence community was looking into the matter or not.