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Women’s tennis legend Martina Navratilova spoke out on the US-Israeli strikes against Iran on Saturday.
Navratilova, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, called him a “psychopath” for the decision to attack Iran in an article on X.
“OMG…Trump is a psychopath – he doesn’t care how many people he is personally responsible for killing,” Navratilova wrote in response to a post from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green criticizing Trump for the strike.
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Navratilova also expressed support for the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in a subsequent article.
“That would be good news,” she wrote in response to an earlier 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 led 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, alongside Riley Gaines, by signing a letter in November condemning the Iranian regime for the death sentence of boxing champion Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani.
Navratilova nevertheless made similar criticisms of Trump after the military attack on Venezuela and the capture of Nicolas Maduro in January.
“He is absolutely crazy. Not to mention this is completely illegal,” Navratilova wrote on January 4 of Trump after the Venezuelan strike. “President of peace, my a–! Trump breaks more laws than all previous presidents combined. A serial criminal on so many different fronts!”
Navratilova cited her past as a refugee who fled the former Czechoslovakia to escape a totalitarian communist government in her criticism of Trump. Navratilova said she left her native country in 1975, citing her experience under Soviet rule, unhappy with limitations on individual freedoms.
Navratilova has compared Trump to her home country’s authoritarian regime in the past, including in the tennis legend’s pinned post on X.
“I grew up in a totalitarian authoritarian country and I will not vote for this, now or ever,” she wrote in October 2024, referring to Trump.
Saturday’s strikes on Iran sparked growing bipartisan pressure in Congress to limit Trump’s war powers, with lawmakers from both parties demanding passage of resolutions to limit his authority to use military force in the region.
Members of both houses had already planned to force votes before the first bombs fell on Saturday. Today, they are doubling down on calls to restrict the president’s military authority.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, repeatedly forced votes to limit Trump’s war powers abroad, and he nearly succeeded 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 an article on X that he opposed “this war. It’s not ‘America First’.”
Trump called on the Iranian people to “take control” of the country’s government.
“This is the greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country,” the president wrote. “We are hearing that many members of the IRGC, military and other security and police forces no longer want to fight and are seeking immunity from us. As I said last night: “Now they can get immunity, later they will only get death!” » »
Trump said he hoped the IRGC and police would “peacefully merge” with Iranian patriots to stabilize the country.
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“This process should begin soon as not only Khamenei’s death, but the country was, in a single day, largely destroyed and even wiped out,” he wrote. “The intense, one-off bombings will continue, however, uninterrupted throughout the week or as long as necessary to achieve our goal of PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”
