Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
Iran Conflict 2026
12AUG

Majlis reviews €50m Trump bounty bill

3 min read
14:52UTC

Iran International reported on Friday 15 May that the Iranian Majlis was reviewing a bill proposing a €50 million reward for killing US President Donald Trump, framed as retaliation for the deaths of Iranian leaders.

ConflictDeveloping
Key takeaway

Iran International alone reports a Majlis bill proposing €50m for killing Trump; IRNA, Tasnim and Mehr have not corroborated.

Iran International, the London-based Persian-language opposition outlet, reported that the Iranian Majlis was reviewing a bill proposing a €50 million reward for killing US President Donald Trump, framed as retaliation for the deaths of Iranian leaders 1. The bill has not been corroborated by IRNA, Tasnim, or Mehr News Agency as of Saturday 16 May, and the briefing treats it as opposition-source narrative intelligence on hardliner domestic pressure rather than confirmed legislative action.

Confidence: suggested. Iran International is opposition-aligned and operates from London; its reporting on Majlis proceedings has historically run ahead of state-media confirmation on around two-thirds of items, with the remainder failing to corroborate at all. Cross-checking against IRNA, Tasnim and Mehr News through Saturday 16 May produced no parallel coverage. This story sits in the no-corroboration bucket until that changes.

Contextually, the bill would extend a sequence of hardliner Majlis escalations: the 221-0 IAEA suspension vote, the NPT withdrawal bill, and the Hormuz toll legislation that established the PGSA on 5 May . A bounty bill in this sequence is a domestic-political move aimed less at Trump personally than at Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi's bilateral diplomatic track, which depends on Tehran being able to credibly receive American counterparts. A formal Majlis bounty would make that mathematically impossible.

Counter-perspective: Western legal scholars including Ryan Goodman (NYU) have observed that even non-binding parliamentary bounty resolutions can satisfy the predicate threshold for the US 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act state-sponsor-of-terrorism designation expansion, giving Washington a fresh statutory escalation pathway it has not previously activated against Iran. The White House presidential-actions index reads zero on Iran through last Wednesday ; the Alaskan senator's AUMF remained unfiled , and the constitutional war-powers timer kept running .

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Iran International, a London-based Iranian opposition news outlet, reported that Iran's parliament, the Majlis, was reviewing a bill proposing a €50 million reward for the killing of US President Donald Trump, presented as retaliation for Iranian leaders killed since the conflict began. The report has not been confirmed by IRNA, Tasnim, or Mehr News, Iran's main state media outlets. Significant Majlis legislation is routinely covered by state outlets; the silence suggests this is a hardliner proposal at an early stage, if it exists at all. Iran has historic precedent for state-adjacent bodies attaching monetary bounties to named foreign targets: the 15 Khordad Foundation offered $3 million for Salman Rushdie's killing from 1989 onwards. Those precedents produced murders of translators and associates, not the primary target.

What could happen next?
  • Consequence

    If the bill is confirmed and passed, it would give the Trump administration a domestic political justification for escalating sanctions or strikes that bypasses the congressional AUMF debate and the War Powers Act deadline.

  • Risk

    The bill's publication via an opposition outlet, without state-media corroboration, means it may circulate in Western media in ways that harden US positions in the Pakistan-mediated MOU process regardless of its actual legislative status.

First Reported In

Update #99 · Two Hormuz papers; Washington on neither

Iran International· 16 May 2026
Read original
Causes and effects
This Event
Majlis reviews €50m Trump bounty bill
If confirmed, this would be the first time Iran's parliament formally proposed a bounty on a sitting US president, and would functionally destroy Foreign Minister Araghchi's civilian diplomatic track overnight.
Different Perspectives
Anwar Gargash, UAE presidential diplomatic adviser
Anwar Gargash, UAE presidential diplomatic adviser
Gargash warned the region cannot stay trapped between "neither war nor peace", naming the stalemate itself as unsustainable for a Gulf state hosting US forces and absorbing the shipping-risk cost without being party to either the strike decisions or the corridor talks.
Shipping and insurance underwriters
Shipping and insurance underwriters
War-risk premiums are still set against an active blockade and a fatal Bab el-Mandeb attack with an unresolved vessel identity. A disabling strike and a diplomatic "advanced" claim pulling in opposite directions gives underwriters no single signal to reprice cover against.
Pakistan and Qatar (Oman corridor mediators)
Pakistan and Qatar (Oman corridor mediators)
Pakistan's defence minister said matters are "shaping up in favor of peace" on Hormuz and a Qatari spokesperson called the Iran-Oman reopening talks advanced. Both are publicly ahead of Tehran's own security council, which has just disowned the deal's significance.
United States Central Command / President Trump
United States Central Command / President Trump
CENTCOM confirmed a helicopter strike disabled a container ship that tried to evade the blockade, and Trump said the US "totally controls" the Strait of Hormuz. Washington is treating evasion of the blockade as grounds for disabling fire rather than the redirection tactic CENTCOM used through July.
Mohsen Rezaei, Iran's Supreme National Security Council
Mohsen Rezaei, Iran's Supreme National Security Council
Rezaei told China's ambassador Hormuz reopens only when the US ends the war and unblocks Iran's funds, and that the Oman transit deal "will have no impact" on that decision. He is drawing a hard line between the technical corridor track and the political settlement his council controls.
Yemen's internationally recognised government and affected communities
Yemen's internationally recognised government and affected communities
SABA reported at least 17 soldiers killed at Saudi-backed camps in eastern Yemen as tanker use of Bab el-Mandeb fell. The fighting adds civilian and supply risks to a route ships use when Hormuz is unsafe.