Martina Navratilova rips Trump for Iran strikes but backs killing Khamenei

Women’s tennis legend Martina Navratilova weighed in on the U.S-Israeli strikes against Iran Saturday. 

Navratilova, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, labeled him a “psychopath” for the decision to attack Iran in a post on X. 

“OMG… Trump is a psychopath- he totally doesn’t give a damn how many people he is personally responsible for killing,” Navratilova wrote in response to a post by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green criticizing Trump for the strike. 

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Navratilova also expressed support for the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in a later post.

“That would be good news,” she wrote in response to an earlier news report that Khamenei might be dead. 

Khamenei was confirmed dead on Saturday after an Israeli strike in Tehran after his compound was reduced to rubble. Khamenei ruled the Islamic Republic for more than three decades and oversaw an era of harsh internal repression and confrontation with the United States and Israel. 

Navratilova previously joined a coalition  of athletes, along with Riley Gaines, signing a letter in November condemning the Iranian regime for its death sentence of boxing champion Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani.

Still, Navratilova levied similar criticism against Trump after the military strike on Venezuela and the capture of Nicolás Maduro in January. 

“He is absolutely insane. Not to mention this is completely illegal,” Navratilova wrote on Jan. 4 of Trump after the Venezuelan strike. “Peace president my a–! Trump is breaking more laws than all the previous presidents combined. A serial criminal on so many different fronts!”

Navratilova has cited her background as a refugee who fled the former Czechoslovakia to escape a totalitarian communist government in her criticisms of Trump. Navratilova has said she left her homeland in 1975, citing her experience under Soviet rule, resenting the limitations on personal liberties.

Navratilova has compared Trump to her home country’s authoritarian rule in the past, including in the tennis legend’s pinned post on X.

“I lived in a totalitarian authoritarian country growing up and I will not vote for that now or ever,” she wrote in October 2024, referencing Trump. 

Saturday’s strikes on Iran prompted a growing bipartisan push in Congress to rein in Trump’s war powers, with lawmakers in both parties demanding votes on resolutions aimed at limiting his authority to use military force in the region.

Members in both chambers had already planned to force votes before the first bombs fell Saturday. Now, they are doubling down on calls to restrict the president’s military authority.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., has repeatedly forced votes to curb Trump’s war powers abroad, and he was nearly successful in halting further military action in Venezuela until Republicans blocked the effort earlier this year.

In the House, Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., are preparing their own war powers resolution for a vote.

Massie said in a post on X he opposed “this war. This is not ‘America First.’”

Trump has called for the people of Iran to “take control” of the country’s government. 

“This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country,” the president wrote. “We are hearing that many of their IRGC, Military, and other Security and Police Forces, no longer want to fight, and are looking for Immunity from us. As I said last night, ‘Now they can have Immunity, later they only get Death!'”

Trump said he hopes the IRGC and police will “peacefully merge” with Iranian patriots to stabilize the country.

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“That process should soon be starting in that, not only the death of Khamenei but the Country has been, in only one day, very much destroyed and, even, obliterated,” he wrote. “The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”

Fox News’ Efrat Lachter, Ruth Marks Eglash, Alex Miller and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.  

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