After President-elect Trump’s victory, Iran must now prepare to contend with the man it’s been trying to assassinate for years.

Tehran had reportedly been interfering in the U.S. election on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris. But with former Trump’s win, the regime will have to prepare for a U.S. leader who is, at the very least, a wild card. 

On Wednesday, the Telegram channel of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC), its military force, posted a video threatening to kill Trump. It ended with footage of a bloodied Trump and the words “We will finish the job.”

Iran has long vowed revenge for Trump approving the 2019 killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani. 

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“The Islamic Republic has to be terrified that the presidential candidate that they tried to kill has just won the election,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank, told Fox News Digital. 

“The regime knows it can ill afford more exogenous economic shocks. Even the return of maximum pressure alone to the Islamic Republic is going to cause major, major economic problems.”

Iran’s currency tanked to an all-time low Wednesday after Trump clinched victory, signaling its challenges are far from over in the Middle East as war rages on through proxies in both Gaza and Lebanon. 

After Tuesday’s victory, Iran must now prepare to contend with the man it has been trying to assassinate for years. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The rial traded at 703,000 rials to the dollar, traders in Tehran said, breaking a record before recovering slightly later in the day to 696,150 to $1.

In 2015, at the time of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, the rial was at 32,000 to $1. On July 30, the day Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian was sworn in and started his term, the rate was 584,000 to $1.

And despite U.S. sanctions that critics claim have not been enforced, Iran has been able to export near-record amounts of oil, around 1.7 million barrels per day.  

At the same time, Iran could ramp up production to build a nuclear weapon in a matter of weeks by many estimates. 

“Tehran knows maximum pressure is set to return,” said Taleblu. “During this lame duck period, the nuclear saber rattling threat has to be taken seriously, particularly when its conventional deterrence has been so badly beaten.”

After the Trump administration pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, it imposed harsh sanctions on the regime to stop its funding of proxies abroad, banning U.S. citizens from trading with Iran or handling Iranian money. 

It also punished entities in other countries that did business with Iran by cutting them off from the dollar. 

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has led the yearslong campaign to assassinate Trump. (Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Image)

President Biden often waived enforcement of such sanctions, keen to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons and fearful of driving up global oil prices. 

Iran gained access to more than $10 billion through a State Department sanctions waiver that allowed Iraq to continue buying energy from Iran, which the Biden administration argues is necessary to keep lights on in Baghdad. 

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby has insisted none of the funds go to the IRGC or Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei but are “for humanitarian goods.”

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Iran must also now factor an imminent Trump presidency into how it escalates war with Israel. Israel responded to Tehran’s strikes on Tel Aviv last month with attacks on Iranian military sites, and now Khamenei has vowed harsh countermeasures. 

“Trump’s victory will give Iran pause as it considers striking back at Israel in their tit for tat,” said Sean McFate, adjunct professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. 

“During Trump’s previous administration, he scuttled the Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA), strongly embraced Israel and sought to normalize Jewish-Arab relations in the region. I doubt he will support the Palestinians, and he will likely end the Biden-Harris dual policy of support to both sides in the Gaza conflict. None of this is good for Iran.”

Trump ordered a drone strike on Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, center, in 2019. (Press Office of Iranian Supreme Leader/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

But others predicted Trump may actually be less supportive of Israel, Iran’s No. 1 foe in the region, than the Biden administration due to his anti-interventionist tendencies. 

“There’s the unpredictability factor with Trump,” said Chuck Freilich, former deputy national security adviser in Israel. “They don’t know. They’ll be cautious from that point of view with him and more so than they would have been with Biden.”

“Will they be willing to do what has to be done to prevent Iran from crossing, and that may include military action? The Republican Party has become isolationist.

“Biden sent aircraft carrier groups [near Israel] on four occasions in the last year. That’s an unprecedented deployment of American force, both in support of Israel and to deter Iran. Is [Trump] willing to do that?” he added. “I think he will be maybe even less inclined to use military force than Biden would have been.”

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Officially, Iran brushed off the suggestion a Trump presidency could inflict damage on the regime. 

“The U.S. elections are not really our business. Our policies are steady and don’t change based on individuals. We made the necessary predictions before, and there will not be change in people’s livelihoods,” government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

A Democratic congressman from New York recently blamed progressives for President-elect Trump’s victory this week, arguing that far-left causes actually disenchant certain voters.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., claimed that his party has “alienated historic numbers” of minority voters in an X (former Twitter)  post on Wednesday. Torres, a vocal supporter of Israel, pointed fingers at pro-Palestinian protests as one of the causes – as well as the movement to defend police.

“Donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left, which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ or ‘Latinx,’ Torres wrote.

“There is more to lose than there is to gain politically from pandering to a far left that is more representative of Twitter, Twitch, and TikTok than it is of the real world,” the Democrat added. “The working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far left is selling.”

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Torres’ comments came in the aftermath of the initial 2024 election results, which found that Vice President Harris had less favorability among Latino and Hispanic voters than President Biden did in 2020.

According to a Fox News Voter Analysis, Biden garnered 63% of Latino support in 2020 while Harris only had 54% this year.

Another Fox News Voter Analysis found that support for Trump among Latino and Hispanic voters jumped from 35% in 2020 to 41% in 2024.

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Media outlets that spent much of 2024 sounding the alarm the President-elect Donald Trump is a threat to democracy didn’t take it particularly well when it became clear he would defeat Vice President Kamala Harris on election night.  (Getty Images)

The shift came days after the Trump campaign was criticized for hosting comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at a high-profile Oct. 27 rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The comedian made an inflammatory joke about Puerto Rico being a “floating island of garbage,” prompting an outcry.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., attempted to use Hinchliffe’s joke as an opportunity to sway the Latino community shortly after he uttered the remark.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., speaks onstage at the March For Israel at the National Mall on Nov. 14, 2023 in Washington, D.C.  (Noam Galai/Getty Images)

“That’s just what they think about you,” the congresswoman said during a Twitch stream. “It’s what they think about anyone who makes less money than them. It’s what they think about the people who serve them food in a restaurant. It’s what they think about the people who, who fold their clothes in a store.”

Fox News was the top choice for TV viewers on election night, marking the second straight time the conservative network led rivals in viewership for presidential results.

According to Nielsen data, Fox News averaged 10.3 million viewers from 8 to 11 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, finishing ahead of ABC’s 5.7 million viewers who tuned in for coverage of former President Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.

The night was a milestone for MSNBC, which topped CNN on a presidential election night for the first time.

Comcast Corp.-owned MSNBC averaged 6 million viewers, beating CNN’s 5.1 million viewers. Warner Bros. Discovery-owned CNN lost nearly half of the 9.6 million people who watched during the 2020 presidential election.

Overall TV viewing of election coverage was down from 2020. Nielsen said 42.3 million viewers tuned into election coverage across 18 networks measured, dropping 25% from 2020. During that cycle, the outcome wasn’t called for days. Democrat Joe Biden eventually was declared the victor over then-incumbent Trump.

The declines are due to the the audience’s shift away from watching traditional TV, especially among viewers under the age of 50, who have moved to streaming and social media for their news consumption. Cord-cutting has reduced the number of homes that cable news outlets reach.

Fox News coverage anchored by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum was down from its record 13.8 million viewers in 2020, a year when cable news channel viewership reached an all-time high. Even with MSNBC’s improved competitive position, the outlet was down from 7.3 million in 2020.

Broadcast networks were down as well.

NBC averaged 5.5 million viewers, followed by CBS (3.6 million), the Fox broadcast network (2 million), Fox Business Network (897,000) and NewsNation (265,000), which also was carried on the CW Network.

More viewers are streaming election coverage online. Fox News said its digital sites had 47.2 million views between 6 p.m. and 3 a.m. Eastern. MSNBC’s YouTube channel had its strongest day on record with 30 million video views.

MSNBC’s “Kornacki-Cam,” which provided a continuous look at Steve Kornacki’s analysis of the vote, had more than 9 million video starts on YouTube.