President Donald Trump has revealed the exact deadline for Iran to make a deal and reopen the Strait of Hormuz before he claimed the U.S. would unleash “hell” in a profanity-laden threat posted on Truth Social.
Trump posted the extraordinary threat on Easter Sunday, less than 12 hours after he announced the successful rescue mission of the missing U.S. fighter pilot.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy b*****ds, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, which critics swiftly condemned him for the expletive outburst.
In a separate post a few hours later, he simply said: “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!”
The president, who was pictured Sunday arriving at the White House after a visit to Trump National Golf Club in Washington, D.C., gave the same deadline to reporters who called him up directly to seek clarity on his ever-changing timelines. He told some of them that he could “blow up the whole country” if Iran doesn’t make a deal by Tuesday night.
“If they don’t do something by Tuesday evening, they won’t have any power plants and they won’t have any bridges standing,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal.
On the weekend of March 20 and 21, Trump previously threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants within 48 hours unless the country released its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz — the vital waterway where a fifth of the world’s oil passes through.
Then, on March 23, he extended the deadline amid “very good and productive conversations” with Iran, which the regime quickly denied.
ABC’s political correspondent, Rachel Scott, said she asked Trump in a phone call if he would move back his Tuesday deadline.
“I don’t want to talk about it, they have plenty of time to make a deal,” he reportedly told Scott. “If they don’t want to make a deal — their whole country is gone.”
The correspondent said she also asked Trump if the war would be over within two to three weeks, which was the approximate deadline the president gave in an address to the nation Wednesday night.
“It should be days, not weeks,” Trump reportedly said. “It should be wrapped up in days because no sane group of people could stand the punishment that’s going to rain down on them if it’s not.”
He was asked the same question by the WSJ and told the outlet: “I will let you know pretty soon.”
Like other messages Trump has sent recently, Sunday’s indication that Trump is considering targeting Iranian civilian infrastructure is a suggestion that the U.S. military could violate international law by expanding to include non-military targets in the country, home to 93 million people.
Asked if he has any concern about the potential suffering of Iranians if civilian infrastructure is hit, Trump claimed that the people “want us to do it,” according to the WSJ, and added they are “living in hell.”
Similarly, he reportedly told Scott “the civilians want me to do it.”
Trump and his allies continue to push the notion that the war is actually won already, and that Iran’s military might has been devastated.
“Never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such clear and devastating, large-scale losses in a matter of weeks,” Trump told Americans during a primetime address last week, before claiming that the U.S. was “winning and now winning bigger than ever before.”
John Bowden contributed to this report
