Iran state TV airs $10 million bounty on Barron Trump

Iranian state television broadcast a video this week tracking the movements of Barron Trump, the 20-year-old son of President Donald Trump, and claiming that a $10 million bounty has been placed on his life.

The roughly three-minute segment aired on Channel 3 of Iran's state broadcaster and was produced by media affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to Euronews and Iran International. Euronews translated its title as 'Where and how should we kill Barron Trump?'; other outlets rendered it 'Where to kill Barron Trump?' The Jerusalem Post said the segment closed with the line: 'Millions of FIFA players against Trump are waiting to receive a ten-million-dollar prize from us.'

The report used stylized graphics to depict surveillance of Barron Trump, claiming to show the location of the university he attends, his escort vehicles and the positioning of his Secret Service detail, and saying his movements had been fully monitored. Iran International said it could not verify those operational claims.

What the video claims

Several of the assertions could not be independently confirmed. Euronews reported that the video claimed 'a girl' had found a way past the Secret Service and sat with Barron Trump during a private meeting before passing information to the program's makers, and that he communicates by voice and text through his Xbox, away from his detail.

If we do not carry out qisas on Trump, if we do not punish our leader's killer, the current leader and the leaders of the Islamic Republic will always have to live in hiding.

Some figures on Iranian state media have cast the threats through qisas, an Islamic legal concept of retribution in kind for intentional killing or injury, arguing that Khamenei's death creates an obligation to kill those responsible. Mohammad-Javad Larijani, a former foreign affairs adviser to Khamenei who appears on state television, called qisas the Islamic Republic's 'inalienable right.'

The reported bounty was put at $10 million, or about 8.5 million euros. Near the end of the segment, the narrator said 'many would be willing' to claim the reward.

The broadcast also mapped locations tied to Barron Trump, including Trump Tower in New York, and claimed to have identified his Xbox, Discord and FIFA accounts, along with two people it described as classmates, according to the Jerusalem Post. One, named as Bo Loudon, is a conservative social media influencer known to be a friend of his; the other, listed as 'Liam Carter,' the paper said appeared to be a fabricated profile.

A pattern against the family

Weeks earlier, Iranian state-linked media aired a comparable video targeting First Lady Melania Trump, rendered by The Week as 'Where would you kill Melania?' and elsewhere as 'Where to kill Melania.' It detailed her routine movements, framed her interest in fashion as a 'weak point,' listed the names and addresses of luxury stores she visits, and said the material came from several unidentified security networks.

Other material has centered on the president himself. On July 15, a billboard in Tehran's Islamic Revolution Square showed Trump apparently dead in a coffin above the English words 'We Kill Trump,' and a separate video purported to map Trump's own motorcade route between airports and his homes in Florida and New York. The Secret Service confirmed it was reviewing that footage, Euronews reported.

The Secret Service has not commented publicly on the Barron Trump segment. Asked in July about the video targeting Melania Trump, a spokesman, Nate Herring, said the agency was aware of it and investigates anything that can be perceived as a threat toward its protectees. Barron Trump is covered by the federal statute extending protection to the immediate family of a sitting president.

Iran International said the material relies heavily on staged graphics and that it could not independently verify the operational claims. The Week described much of what was aired as unlikely to be authentic. The decision to run it on state television carried weight regardless of whether the claims were true.

The title was set in a font mimicking blood, the New York Post reported.

Roots in a widening war

The threats have intensified since February 28, when joint US-Israeli strikes killed Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with other senior military and political figures, in what opened the current war. Calls for revenge have since become a central feature of hardline rhetoric in Iran, Protothema reported.

Hundreds of thousands attended Khamenei's funeral in July and chanted slogans against the United States and Israel, and some hardliners openly called for Trump's assassination.

The animus runs back further, to January 2020, when a US drone strike killed Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran's Quds Force, at Baghdad International Airport. Iranian officials vowed retaliation then and have renewed those pledges repeatedly since.

US prosecutors have accused members and associates of the Revolutionary Guards of plotting to kill former senior American officials, including former National Security Adviser John Bolton, in retaliation for Soleimani's death. In August 2022, the Justice Department charged an IRGC member, Shahram Poursafi, over the alleged Bolton plot. He has not been tried and is believed to be in Iran.

In November 2024, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Tehran had tasked an IRGC asset, Farhad Shakeri, with drawing up a plan to kill Trump. Shakeri has not been arrested and is believed to be in Iran. Trump's security was tightened as a result.

Trump's warning to Tehran

Trump has warned that any attempt on his life would bring a severe American response. 'The whole country's going to get blown up,' he said in a January 20, 2026 interview.

The president has vowed to increase pressure on Iran as the war continues. In a post on Truth Social on August 24, he claimed the country was 'completely collapsing.' Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is preparing new sanctions that Trump has described as an 'economic D-Day.'

Trump was pulled from Air Force One at Ankara on July 8 and moved to another plane by the Secret Service amid a reported threat from Iran, The Washington Post reported on August 10.

The broadcast followed a state-backed event in Tehran days earlier. On August 21, a participant there was photographed holding a sign reading 'Kill Trump' as a giant billboard depicting an avenging warrior loomed over the crowd, in an image published by Iran International. Threats against Trump and other American officials have featured for years in Iranian rhetoric, state-linked media and rallies, the broadcaster said.

Newsmax said the video was reported on Sunday by Al Bawaba, a Jordanian news website. Neither the Jerusalem Post nor Iran International could locate it on Channel 3's own platforms, and copies spread from a post on X by Niyak Ghorbani, a London-based journalist who opposes the Iranian government. The Tasnim News Agency, which is linked to the Guard Corps, had ended the earlier Melania video with the line: 'This is just the beginning. Barron Trump, wait for us.'

What is not known

No US agency has publicly corroborated the video, and no evidence has emerged that anyone has reached Barron Trump or that a bounty formally exists, Iran International said. Euronews reported that the bounty claim itself could not be independently verified at the time of publication. The footage rests on dramatized graphics rather than documented surveillance.

Iran International cast the broadcast as a possible escalation, because it moved the threats from Trump and officials involved in Iran policy toward a member of his family who holds no government role.

The war that began on February 28 continues. The Barron Trump segment, like the Melania video before it, closed with a boast rather than any claim of an attempt carried out. Its title, and the reward it advertised, kept a member of the president's family at the center of that campaign.