An Iranian state-affiliated news agency released a video providing detailed operational guidance on how to kill First Lady Melania Trump, naming specific Manhattan luxury retailers, identifying three stylists by name, and closing with a direct threat against her 20-year-old son, Barron Trump — the latest escalation in a sustained Iranian campaign targeting the Trump family.
The video, published by Tasnim News Agency — which maintains close ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — is titled “Where to Kill Melania?!” The presentation begins with a stylized image of the first lady drawn in blood underneath that question. According to the narrator, who speaks in Farsi, the material is based on intelligence sources, and claims the video relied on information from “anonymous security networks and satellite images.” However, most of the content seems to draw from public records regarding the first lady’s schedule and interests.
Video Targets Fashion Habits, Luxury Stores
The narrator calls Melania Trump’s love of fashion her greatest vulnerability, highlighting upscale New York shops such as Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue where she regularly shops. Security preparations that might indicate an imminent first lady visit are also mentioned, including sidewalk trash bin removal and manhole covers being sealed with welds. The production also shows presidential motorcades and reveals the Secret Service code names assigned to President Donald Trump and the first lady.
The video’s most disturbing segment describes possible methods of attack. It recommends poisoning garments in upscale boutiques using VX nerve agent and points to potential access through three stylists named in the video, as well as through a hospital situated along the first lady’s typical travel paths. These sites are described as suitable for operations by “global freedom fighters.” The production ends with an explicit warning to Barron Trump: “Barron Trump, wait for us!”
Billboards and a Broader Iranian Threat Campaign
The threatening video represents just one component of an extensive propaganda operation that has emerged in Tehran recently. Multiple billboards now stand in Iran’s capital showing Melania Trump, Barron Trump, and Ivanka Trump — the president’s daughter — with their eyes digitally closed and the word “KILLED” stamped in red over their faces. Accompanying text states: “Hey, Terrorist! Get ready to die.” Another billboard bearing the phrase “blood for blood” demanded the executions of the president and his family members. A third display featured computer-generated images showing President Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio submerged in blood.
Iran’s Mehr News Agency, a separate state-affiliated outlet, also released an AI-generated video this month showing a plastic toy-style U.S. serviceman emerging from destroyed aircraft wreckage in scorching conditions as an Iranian serviceman relaxed with a beverage, with a caption that read: “Too hot for you, softie. Go back to your air conditioner.”
Context: Conflict, Assassinations, and U.S. Retaliation
The threatening videos and billboards follow a period of intense military confrontation. At the end of February 2026, U.S. and Israeli strikes on Tehran killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who had ruled Iran since 1989 — in airstrikes targeting his residence. President Trump described Khamenei as a “vile man.” The strikes also killed a number of other senior Iranian officials, including national head of defense Ali Shamkani, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Commander Mohammad Pakpour, Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, armed forces chief of staff Sayyid Mousavi, and Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani, among others.
Since those strikes, the surviving leadership in Tehran has vowed retaliation. Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the slain supreme leader, said revenge for his father’s death “is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out.” President Trump responded to Iranian threats earlier this month by warning publicly that 1,000 missiles were “Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat.”
The threats against the Trump family are not new. According to Manhattan federal prosecutors, Iran had previously hired an operative, Farhad Shakeri, to assassinate President Trump ahead of the 2024 election. The U.S. military hunted down and killed Shakeri in March 2026.
Security and the First Lady’s Recent Movements
Melania Trump, Barron Trump, and other members of the first family receive continuous protection from the Secret Service, which also secures the White House, Trump Tower in New York, the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and the president’s other properties. Neither the White House nor the first lady’s office responded to requests for comment about the Tasnim video.
Melania Trump has made relatively few public appearances in recent weeks. She did not attend the White House Correspondents Association dinner on Friday, July 24, 2026. According to a source, she was unable to attend because of a “scheduling conflict.” Mirror news reporter Tim Hanlon reported details of the threatening video on July 27, 2026.
The coordinated nature of the video’s release — alongside the billboard campaign and the separate Mehr News Agency mockery of U.S. forces — signals a deliberate, multi-platform propaganda effort by elements affiliated with Iran’s government, directed squarely at the Trump family and U.S. officials in the months following the February airstrikes.
