President Trump on Tuesday threatened to take “very strong action” against the Iranian regime if anti-government protesters are executed.
“I haven’t heard about the hanging. If they hang ’em, you’re gonna see some things that – I don’t know what you’re – where you come from and what your thought process is, but you’ll perhaps be very happy,” Trump told “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil during an interview in Detroit.
When Dokoupil asked the president to clarify what he meant, Trump responded: “If they do such a thing, we will take very strong action.”
More than 2,000 Iranians have been killed amid the regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
Other sources paint a far more grim picture, with death toll estimates ranging between 12,000 to 20,000 people, CBS News reported.
Trump said the “endgame” of taking strong action against Tehran would be “to win,” and implied that it would involve a military operation when asked how he would define victory in Iran.
“Well, let’s define it in Venezuela. Let’s define it with al Baghdadi. He was wiped out. Let’s define it with Soleimani, and let’s define it in Iran, where [the US military] wiped out the Iran nuclear threat in a period of about 15 minutes once the B-2s got there,” the president explained.
“We don’t want to see what’s happening in Iran happen,” Trump continued. “And, you know, if they want to have protests, that’s one thing. When they start killing thousands of people – and now you’re telling me about hanging – we’ll see how that works out for them.
“It’s not going to work out good.”
Dokoupil, who took over anchoring duties on “CBS Evening News” earlier this month, pressed Trump about concerns from voters that his attention has been “drifting” away from domestic issues and toward problems in other countries.
“My big focus is here,” Trump said, after arguing that the US economy is soaring. “But you can’t be forgetting about bad threats. You can’t be forgetting about an Iran with a nuclear weapon. You can’t forget that there’s tremendous wealth in the Middle East, and a lot of that wealth is coming over here to build plants.”
The president added, “My focus is very much on this country, but you can’t lose sight of the fact that we need peace all over the world.”
Later, Trump doubled-down on comments he made earlier this month indicating that his actions overseas will only be limited by his own morality.
“I’m a moral person. I don’t like seeing death. I don’t like seeing our people hurt. I don’t like seeing the other side hurt either,” he said.
“You know, when we went into Venezuela we lost nobody, but a lot of people on the other side were killed,” the president continued, referring to ousted dictator Nicolas Maduro’s security forces. “I don’t like that. Somebody else would say, ‘Oh, that’s wonderful.’ I don’t like that.
“So yeah, it’s limited by my morality. And I have a very high grade of morality, so therefore it’s limited.”
