US President Donald Trump has claimed he has left standing orders for the US military to unleash massive retaliation against Iran if Tehran follows through on what he described as long-standing assassination threats against him.However, US law provides no mechanism for an automatic, preauthorised “dead man’s switch” that would trigger military action upon the president’s death.Instead, if Trump were assassinated, presidential authority would immediately pass to Vice President JD Vance under the 25th Amendment and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. As commander in chief, Vance would decide whether to carry out Trump’s desired response, modify it, or reject it altogether.“The US has, for a whole variety of reasons, never utilised a technical dead man’s switch,” Garrett M Graff, author of Raven Rock: The Story of the US Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself — While the Rest of Us Die, told news agency APWhile the United States maintains extensive continuity-of-government plans for catastrophic scenarios such as nuclear attacks, those plans do not authorise automatic military retaliation following a president’s death.Trump made the remarks in a post on his social media platform on Saturday, claiming Iran had threatened “to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate” him. He wrote that 1,000 missiles were “locked and loaded” and aimed at Iran, with thousands more ready to follow if Tehran acted on those threats.Hours later, Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei vowed to continue avenging the death of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the initial US-Israeli strikes that triggered the war in late February.“We pledge to take revenge for the pure blood of you and all the martyrs of these two wars from the criminal and disgraceful killers,” Khamenei said in remarks broadcast on state television. “This revenge is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out.”The White House did not immediately respond to questions about whether Trump’s reported military orders would remain valid if he were killed.During funeral ceremonies for the elder Khamenei this week, mourners displayed posters and banners calling for the deaths of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.According to The Wall Street Journal, Israel recently alerted US officials to fresh Iranian plots targeting Trump. The White House declined to comment, but Trump appeared to reference the threats during the NATO summit in Turkey, saying, “They want to take out the US leader — me.”Former Biden administration deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said Iranian threats against senior American leaders are taken seriously.“You have to take these as credible threats,” she said.Trump survived two assassination attempts during the 2024 presidential campaign and, in April, a gunman breached the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner he was attending.The president also travelled back from Turkey this week aboard an older Air Force One aircraft instead of the newer Qatari-gifted jet, reportedly due to security concerns.Images of the newer aircraft indicate it lacks some missile detection and countermeasure systems found on earlier versions, despite an estimated $400 million retrofit.The aircraft change came as the US and Iran resumed exchanging strikes, threatening to unravel last month’s ceasefire agreement.
