Shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump announced on April 2, 2026, that Pam Bondi was set to be replaced as attorney general, a rumor spread online that the leaders of Iran said the Islamic Republic had started to achieve its goal of regime change in the United States.
For example, one social media user shared the alleged news in a Facebook group (archived), writing:
IRAN SAYS IT HAS STARTED TO ACHIEVE REGIME CHANGE IN US
In other news:
TEHRAN (The Borowitz Report)—The leaders of Iran's Islamic Republic crowed on Thursday that they have begun to achieve their goal of regime change in the U.S.
"First Kristi Noem, and now Pam Bondi," the official Iranian statement read. "The dominoes are falling one by one."
Iran said that, although the US claims Donald J. Trump is still in power, "His speech last night did not prove that he is still alive."
(Image courtesy of Steve Grumette, accessed on Facebook)
Trump confirmed Bondi's firing on his social media platform, Truth Social, adding that Todd Blanche, Bondi's deputy, would temporarily replace her as acting attorney general.
The claim about Bondi's dismissal reportedly playing into Tehran's hands was most popular on Facebook but also circulated on Threads.
As captions on social media posts revealed, the rumor originated from a satirical source — Andy Borowitz, a satirist who runs The Borowitz Report, a website and blog that contains fictional and satirical content.
Borowitz first shared the rumor on April 2 (archived) and posted about it two more times on Facebook and once on his blog.
Searches on DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo (archived, archived, archived) also uncovered no evidence that Iranian officials made such remarks. If they had commented as such on Bondi's firing, journalists with reputable news outlets, such as The Associated Press or Reuters, would have widely reported on it, and those search inquiries would have uncovered such evidence. That was not the case.
Snopes has repeatedly covered satirical claims originating from The Borowitz Report. We have also reported extensively on rumors — satirical or otherwise — about Bondi.
On April 1, before Bondi's dismissal and the claim in question, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian released (archived) a statement addressed to "the people of the United States of America" about the war in Iran. That statement did not say the Islamic Republic was trying to effect regime change in the United States.
In February 2026, U.S. and Israeli strikes killed the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The theocracy has since replaced him with his son, Mojtaba Khamenei. On April 1, Trump reportedly told Reuters news agency, "We have had full regime change," though others have argued that, despite Ali Khamenei's death, the Iranian regime is still in place.
On April 2, Bondi wrote (archived) on X that she would move into an "important private sector role" over the following month. She did not give a reason for this decision but said that holding the role of attorney general had been the "honor of a lifetime."
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