Trump vows bomb contingency plan if assassinated by Iran

Bloomberg’s version is a one-sentence account: Trump warned that the US military would “completely decimate and destroy all areas” of Iran if its leaders “attempted or carried out” his assassination. OAN, Daily Caller and Fox instead center the New York Post interview line that he had “left instructions” to “literally bomb them at levels that they’ve never seen before.” That “left instructions” contingency detail, the New York Post sourcing, and Trump’s line “I’ve been No. 1” on Iran’s kill list appear across the right-leaning pieces but not in Bloomberg’s brief item. The reverse gap is the exact escalation phrase. Bloomberg and CBS both use “decimate and destroy,” while OAN, Daily Caller and Fox do not quote that formulation; they use the “bomb them at levels” wording instead. The same underlying threat is framed as “Decimate Iran” in Bloomberg’s headline, “left instructions to ‘bomb’ Iran” in Fox, “contingency plan” in Daily Caller, and “Operation B**** Slap” in OAN. OAN also adds especially charged phrasing — “Iran’s apparent thirst for Trump’s blood” — that has no counterpart in Bloomberg or CBS. The right-leaning stories add a large amount of context Bloomberg omits: the alleged Israeli warning, Trump’s denial that “Israel came up with” a new threat, the 2020 Qasem Soleimani strike, funeral posters or chants calling for Trump’s death, and domestic assassination threats such as Butler and West Palm Beach. Daily Caller adds a caution the others do not: CNN reported the alleged Israeli intelligence was “neither clear nor vetted” and that the US “had not been tracking” the plot beforehand. None of the pieces answers the procedural question: who, legally and operationally, would be authorized to execute Trump’s claimed standing instruction to bomb Iran if he were assassinated?