Kayhan, an Islamist revolutionary newspaper considered the mouthpiece of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, published an article on Saturday that appeared to encourage the assassination of former President Donald Trump.

The Kayhan article stated, “He’s way out of line! Any day now, in revenge for the blood of Martyr Soleimani, a few bullets are going to be fired into that empty skull of his and he’ll be drinking from the chalice of a cursed death.”

Trump ordered the drone strike that killed Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. Iran has repeatedly threatened to assassinate Trump and other former officials in retaliation.

The Trump administration claimed Soleimani was responsible for the deaths of over 600 American military personnel.

The Kayhan article was published shortly after Trump threatened consequences for Iran if it did not dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

Trump stated, “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” he said. “But there’s a chance that if they don’t make a deal, that I will do secondary tariffs on them like I did four years ago.”

Trump also said that the U.S. and Iranian officials are currently “talking.”

Kayhan criticized Trump’s policies in the article, writing, “He makes threats and then backs down! The result? The situation in America gets worse by the day. Just yesterday, it was announced that his actions have caused $3 trillion in damage to the US economy, American exports are facing serious problems, and top officials in the military, CIA, and elsewhere have either resigned or been dismissed[.]”

Jason Brodsky, policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), told Digital that “Kayhan has repeatedly threatened to assassinate President Trump for years. Kayhan’s editor Hossein Shariatmadari is a personal representative of Iran’s supreme leader.”

“Such threats ring hollow the demands of Iranian officials for there to be ‘mutual respect’ during future negotiations with the United States,” Brodsky added. “At times Kayhan comes out ahead of the Iranian establishment on foreign policy issues, namely the nuclear file. For instance, Kayhan has called for years for Tehran to exit the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but it has not done so to date. However, in calls to kill President Trump, Kayhan has been in alignment with the regime given the past Iranian plots that U.S. law enforcement has disrupted.”

Brodsky further stated, “The Trump administration should make clear that there can be no negotiations while Iran’s regime is threatening and plotting to kill American citizens. The halting of those plots should be a prerequisite to any negotiating process. The U.S. should also sanction Hossein Shariatmadari and Kayhan. The U.S. Treasury Department previously designated Iranian media networks like PressTV and Tasnim. It should do so with Kayhan as well. Canada has already sanctioned Kayhan given its record of threats.”

Iranian-born Israeli Beni Sabti, an Iran expert and research fellow for the Institute for National Security Studies, said Iran’s regime “wants to unite the world against Trump and wants someone to shoot Trump, and also they want to bring the economic issue against him.”

Kayhan also criticized Trump’s tariff policy.

Sabti said the clerical regime’s goal is similar to the attack on Salman Rushdie in upstate New York in 2002, which was motivated by Iranian propaganda.

Digital reported that Hadi Matar, a New Jersey man, embraced the ideology behind the attack on Rushdie due to Rushdie’s book, “The Satanic Verses,” which the Iranian regime deemed blasphemous.

Sabti said Khamenei “wants to make the world angry against Trump and make propaganda against America.”

He added, “It is very good opportunity for the Trump administration to file a complaint with United Nations Security Council” against Iran’s regime for threatening an American president.

In November, Digital reported that the Justice Department said it had thwarted an Iranian plot to kill Trump in the weeks leading up to the election.

A criminal complaint filed in federal court in New York City alleges that an unnamed official in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps tasked Farhad Shakeri, 51, of Iran, in September to “focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States.”

Khamenei has reportedly been determined to assassinate Trump since Trump ordered the killing of Soleimani in Iraq in 2020. Digital reported that an Iranian animated video depicting Trump’s assassination by the Islamic Republic was uploaded to Khamenei’s official website.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian last week stated, “We don’t avoid talks; it’s the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far,” according to the Associated Press. He added, “They must prove that they can build trust.” The White House did not immediately respond to Iran’s rejection of the talks, the AP reported.

Pezeshkian noted that indirect negotiations with the Trump administration were still possible in Iran’s response.

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a Digital press query.

Digital reporters Greg Norman and David Spunt contributed to this report.