In March 2026, a rumor spread that Iran had plotted to kill U.S. President Donald Trump.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sparked it in a March 4, 2026, statement to reporters in which he said "President Trump got the last laugh" (at the 7:16 mark in the video):
Also, yesterday, the leader of the unit who attempted to assassinate President Trump has been hunted down and killed. Iran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump got the last laugh.
Multiple social media posts also relayed the claim.
While Hegseth did not name the unit leader in question, Israeli reporter Amit Segal said on X it was "Rahman Mokadam, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' special operations division." Snopes contacted the Department of Defense seeking confirmation.
It is true that in 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice announced charges against three men it said were plotting to kill a critic of the Iranian regime. According to a criminal complaint, one of the men — described as an Iranian asset — told authorities the IRGC also had asked him to create a plan to assassinate Trump.
Separately, a Pakistani man was being tried in New York as of this writing on suspicion of attempting to commit terrorism and murder-for-hire against a politician or U.S. official and reportedly said the IRGC was behind the scheme.
Here's what we know about those cases and Iran's alleged involvement:
The details of the first plot
On Nov. 8, 2024, the Justice Department under Democratic former President Joe Biden filed a complaint against three men: Farhad Shakeri, an Afghan national thought to be in Iran at the time, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt.
The complaint said Shakeri, who was deported in 2008 after serving 14 years in prison for robbery, hired Rivera "through a network of criminal associates" he met in prison. Rivera then recruited Loadholt to the conspiracy.
Shakeri was working "on behalf of the IRGC," according to the complaint, and instructed Rivera and Loadholt to target an Iranian American journalist and political activist seen as "an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime's human rights abuses and corruption."
Shakeri had, according to the complaint, agreed to several "voluntary interviews" with the FBI over the telephone. In one, he said he met with an IRGC official he identified as "Majid Soleimani." Shakeri said he didn't know if this was his real name or if the man was related to Qasem Soleimani, the IRGC commander the U.S. killed in 2020, during Trump's first administration.
The complaint said that in September 2024, the official asked Shakeri to surveil and eventually assassinate Trump. Shakeri reportedly told the FBI that the official asked him to put together a plan "within seven days." Failing that, the plan would be paused until after the 2024 presidential election, which the official thought Trump would lose. Shakeri said he did not put together a plan, nor did he intend to.
The complaint did not mention Mokadam.
Rivera, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit stalking and was sentenced to 15 years in prison in January 2026. Loadholt, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit stalking and conspiracy to commit money laundering and is scheduled to be sentenced in April 2026.
Shakeri remains at large as of this writing.
The details of the second complaint
The Pakistani man accused of attempting to kill a politician is Asif Raza Merchant. While the complaint against him does not name Trump, Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky signed a letter naming Trump as one of Merchant's targets.
The complaint said Merchant had admitted to seeking to recruiting people in the U.S. to carry out his plan to assassinate government officials. In March 2026, several reports in reputable news outlets said Merchant defended himself in court saying that an official with Iran's Revolutionary Guard named Mehrdad Yousef had recruited him and threatened to harm his family in Iran if he did not kill his targets.
The trial was ongoing as of this writing. The complaint against Merchant also did not mention Mokadam.
For further reading, Snopes examined a claim that Iran had explicitly threatened to assassinate Trump.