President Donald Trump has said he has left explicit instructions for a massive retaliatory strike on Iran should the country succeed in assassinating him, describing himself as having remained the regime’s top target for years.

Speaking to the New York Post on Friday, Trump said the threat against his life was nothing new, but that he had personally ensured a response was already in place.

“I’ve been on their list for a long time. That’s what we’re dealing with,” Trump told the newspaper. “The only thing is, I’ve left instructions if anything happens, to just literally bomb them at levels that they’ve never seen before.”

The comments came just days after reports emerged that Israel had shared fresh intelligence with Washington suggesting Iran was developing a new plot to kill the president. Trump, however, dismissed the idea that this represented any new development, insisting Tehran had wanted him dead for years regardless of recent intelligence. “No, no. Israel came up with nothing,” he said, adding that he had been “number one” on Iran’s kill list for a long time and that “it’s the way life is.”

Tensions between Washington and Tehran have escalated sharply in recent days, with Trump declaring earlier in the week that the fragile ceasefire between the two countries was effectively over, even as both sides agreed to continue talks. The renewed hostilities followed exchanges of strikes after Iran targeted commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, prompting retaliatory action from the United States.

This is not the first time Trump has made such remarks. He made similar comments in February, saying attackers “get obliterated” and that “there won’t be anything left” if Iran succeeded in killing him, and again in January, when he warned the “whole country’s gonna get blown up.” The latest comments follow the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in joint U.S.-Israeli strikes earlier this year, after which mourners at his funeral were seen holding banners reading “WE WILL KILL TRUMP.”

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