Iran unveils billboard in Tehran threatening to kill Donald Trump amid renewed talks

A billboard over Enghelab Square

Iran unveiled a huge billboard on Tuesday, 3 November, dominating Enghelab Square ('Revolution Square'), one of the busiest squares in central Tehran. It reads 'We will kill Trump' and shows the US president behind bars with his head bowed.

A second billboard nearby depicts Trump alongside Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. All four have bloodied faces and torn suits, and stand before tattered American and Israeli flags. Dozens of people gathered on the square during the morning, waving red flags and carrying banners that read 'There will be blood'. They called for revenge for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in US-Israeli air strikes on Tehran on 28 February, the strikes that triggered the war in the Middle East.

The posters went up as Trump faces the US midterm elections, a contest in which his Republican camp is weighed down by voter anger over the cost of living and the war.

Murals, paintings and a prison set in Tajrish

Posters and billboards that mock Trump and promise revenge have appeared regularly across Tehran since the war began. At Tajrish Square, north of the capital, an open-air exhibition showed paintings of this kind. One depicted Trump lying on the ground, his bloodied face pressed under a boot. Another showed a bomb covering his face, an apparent nod to René Magritte's 1964 painting 'Son of Man'.

Close by, a full-size replica of a prison cell was on display, with an actor playing the US president spending the day inside it. Such works are paid for with public money. State-backed billboards and murals have formed part of Iran's public space since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, used to honour allies, celebrate military figures and send political messages to enemies, above all the United States and Israel.

Talks continue alongside the threats

The billboards appeared while both sides say they are intensifying discussions to prevent a large-scale resumption of hostilities. On Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the talks as very intense. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's chief negotiator, told Parliament, which he presides over, that the ball is now in Washington's court if it wants to avoid war.

On Monday evening, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that a deal with Iran was possible. He argued that oil prices were falling because people sensed there would be no war with Iran.

Tehran, for its part, accuses Trump of deliberately targeting civilian sites during the war, including a school and a wedding ceremony. It says the strikes killed dozens of people, among them children, women and men.

Sequence of events

The main beats run from the strike that killed Khamenei on 28 February to Tuesday's billboard unveiling, with Trump's remarks on Monday in between. The sequence is set out below.