Not since a kid on a roof with an automatic rifle took a little chunk out of Donald Trump’s pro-gun ear has the US president had to confront a more bitter irony linked to his extraordinarily shitty behaviour in office. Chris Graham explains.
In a country wracked with angst and uncertainty, there is one thing that will definitely happen, sooner or later: Donald Trump will lose office, and/or die… and not necessarily in that order.
And when he does, Trump – or more specifically, his immediate family – had better hope his successor isn’t as big a bastard as he is. Because this week, Iran – the country Trump has been carpet-bombing for most of 2026 – fired back by offering a $10 million bounty for the head, literally and figuratively, Barron Trump, Trump’s youngest child.
Earlier this week, Iranian state television released a short clip entitled ‘Where to Kill Barron Trump’. According to UK publication Iran International:
“The roughly three-minute report focuses on Barron Trump and portrays attempts to identify ways of reaching him, using stylized graphics depicting surveillance, online activity and people in his surroundings,” Iran International reports.
“The segment displays locations and online platforms purportedly associated with the effort and depicts attempts to map social connections around the president’s son and penetrate layers of Secret Service protection.”
In diplomatic terms, it’s what’s known as… quite a big f**king problem, but not just because Iran wants to pay someone a lot of money to kill one of the Trumps. The president’s biggest dilemma is the enormous red, white and blue karma bus that’s currently trundling along Route 66, headed straight for the White House… because as it turns out, Trump has a very recent history of cancelling Secret Service protections not just for his political foes, but for the children of those foes as well.
Under US federal law, ex-presidents and their spouses are entitled to lifetime protection. But their children are not, at least not once they pass the age of 16. Barron Trump turned 20 in March this year, coincidentally almost one year to the day when his dad cancelled the Secret Service security detail “effective immediately” of Joe Biden’s two surviving children, Hunter and Ashley.
Oops.
Sitting presidents are entitled to extend state-funded security for their kids beyond their term in the top job, albeit briefly. And before leaving office in January 2025, that’s exactly what Biden did – he added six months to the protection afforded his kids, giving them Secret Service coverage until July 2025.
Enter Donald Trump, who did the same thing for his kids after his first term, but then re-took office in January 2025… and promptly cancelled Biden’s extension.
And of course, it’s not just the kids of his political enemies that Trump goes after – he’s cancelled the security details of multiple former officials, including allies Trump himself appointed in his first administration.
Within 72 hours of re-taking office in 2025, Trump cancelled the Secret Service details for Mike Pompeo, Trump’s former Secretary of State; Brian Hook, a former top Trump aide; and John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Adviser, turned trenchant Trump critic.
Ironically, the men were granted Secret Service protection by Joe Biden, after advice from US intelligence agencies that all three were at significant risk of assassination by Iran because of their actions during Trump’s first term in office, including the ordered assassination by Trump of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in 2020, and the assassination earlier this year of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei.
And so now, Iran are going after the Trumps directly.
In a written statement, Secret Service spokesperson Nate Herring confirmed the authenticity of the video, but wouldn’t comment further.
“The US Secret Service is aware of the video and investigates anything that can be perceived as a threat toward our protectees. Out of concern for operational security, we do not discuss matters of protective intelligence.”
The Secret Service silence might make good operational sense, but it’s not going to change one reality for the Trumps – Iran, as a state, will outlive Donald Trump’s presidency and the Secret Service protection for his children, regardless of who wins the White House in 2028.
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