US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that President Donald Trump “got the last laugh” after US forces killed an Iranian official linked to an alleged assassination plot, while insisting the target was not the initial focus of the war.
- Pete Hegseth says the US killed an Iranian official linked to an alleged plot against Donald Trump, claiming Trump “got the last laugh”.
- He insists the target was not the original focus of the war, despite being added to the strike list.
- The Pentagon says the US can sustain the conflict as strikes expand and air superiority over Iran is established.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that President Donald Trump had gotten the “last laugh” after the US military killed an Iranian official who led an effort to assassinate him.
Hegseth used unusually colourful language to describe the four-day-old war on Iran and invoked Trump’s name repeatedly as he said the Pentagon could sustain activity as long as necessary.
Hegseth said of Iranian leaders:
They are toast, and they know it. Or at least soon enough they will know it.
“America is winning – decisively, devastatingly and without mercy.”
Iranian man charged over alleged Trump plot in 2024
Hegseth, who wore a red-white-and-blue tie and pocket square, described the killing of an unnamed Iranian who headed a unit that attempted to assassinate Trump in personal terms, even as he stressed the official was not the initial focus of the war.
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“Iran tried to kill President Trump and President Trump got the last laugh,” Hegseth told reporters.
In 2024, the US Justice Department charged an Iranian man in connection with an alleged plot ordered by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to assassinate Trump, then US president-elect. Tehran has denied accusations that it had targeted Trump and other US officials.
Trump cited the alleged Iranian plot when he spoke on Sunday about a joint US-Israeli operation that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying to ABC News: “I got him before he got me.”
Hegseth, however, said Trump never mentioned the effort to track down the plot leader as a priority for the Pentagon.
“While that was not the focus of the effort by any stretch of the imagination – in fact, never raised by the president or anybody else – I ensured, and others ensured, that those who were responsible for that were eventually part of the target list,” Hegseth told reporters.
Establishing air superiority
The war widened after a US strike hit an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka, deepening a crisis that has paralysed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and choked off vital Middle East oil and gas flows.
Hegseth told reporters that the United States and Israel would have complete control of Iranian skies in a few days.
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General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the briefing that US strikes were expanding as the country establishes air superiority along the southern Iranian coast.
Caine said:
We will now begin to expand inland, striking progressively deeper into Iranian territory, and creating additional freedom of manoeuvre for US forces.
He said Iran’s launches of theatre-wide ballistic missiles were down 86% from the first day of fighting, and their one-way attack drone shots were down 73% from the opening days. He said US strikes were expanding as the US established localised air superiority across the southern Iranian coast.
Trump has suggested that the conflict with Iran could go on for four weeks. US lawmakers from both major political parties have criticised the Trump administration for not spelling out a “day-after” strategy, which appears to largely hinge on the hope that the Iranian people will rise up and determine their own future after decades of repression.
“We can sustain this fight easily for as long as we need to,” Hegseth said, adding that the only limit was Trump’s desire to achieve specific objectives.
