“A Whole Civilization Will Die”: Trump Makes Most Deranged Threat Yet

Donald Trump has hatched a heinous plan for Iran.

The president hinted at the scale of devastation that awaits the Middle Eastern nation via Truth Social post Tuesday morning, promising to completely annihilate one of the world’s oldest continuous civilizations if Iran’s leaders refuse to give him what he wants.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump wrote. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

“However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?” he continued. “We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”

Trump has repeatedly escalated his threats against Iran since Sunday, demanding that the country’s leadership either reopen the Strait of Hormuz—a vital tradeway in the region that only closed because of Trump’s intervention—or face total annihilation, highlighting various possible strike targets such as Iran’s power plants and bridges. The president said this despite the fact that doing so would constitute a war crime.

Targeting non-combatants such as civilians and civilian infrastructure is a blatant violation of International Humanitarian Law. Exterminating a “whole civilization” would break several components of the Geneva Conventions, which the U.S. played a foundational role in creating.

Trump pledged on social media that Iran had the opportunity to act until Tuesday 8 p.m., but the president appears to have jumped his own timeline. By Tuesday morning, bombs were already raining on the nation’s railways.

Iranian media responded just after 9 a.m. EST, announcing through diplomatic channels that talks with the U.S. had stalled in the wake of Trump’s explicit threats.

Vice President JD Vance backed Trump’s response Tuesday morning, telling an assembly in Budapest that he hopes Iran makes the “right response,” highlighting America’s needs for free flowing oil.

“They’ve got to know, we’ve got tools in our toolkit that we so far haven’t decided to use,” Vance said. “The president of the United States can decide to use them, and he will decide to use them if the Iranians don’t change their course of conduct.”

It was not clear exactly which “tools,” capable of erasing an entire civilization, Vance was referring to.

The flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz was not an issue until Israel and the U.S. jointly attacked Iran in late February. In the weeks that followed, Iran sealed off the waterway, which funnels approximately one-fifth of all global crude oil shipments.

The ramifications of closing the chokepoint have been felt around the world. In the U.S., the price per oil barrel has exploded due to the strait’s closure, pushing gas over $4 per gallon in most states (in some areas of California, gas has leapt past $7 a gallon). Diesel shot up by 20 cents over the last week alone.

Trump has waffled on the strait’s significance to American markets. Last week, the president rapidly cycled through his opinions on the transit point, claiming in succession that he didn’t care if the strait remained closed, and that he needed it reopened.

The pressure to reopen the strait likely comes from his own party, which has become increasingly anxious over the economic fallout of the war. Republicans—particularly in vulnerable districts—have stressed that the war could wreak havoc on their election results come November.

That alone has amped up enough pressure on the White House to seek a near-immediate conclusion to the war, though it does not appear that Trump will have it.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, is already bolstering itself for another grinding Middle East conflict: last month, Politico reported that military strategists in U.S. Central Command requested the Pentagon supply support for their operations in Iran through at least September.

This story has been updated.

President Trump reached out to the crew of the Artemis II spacecraft Monday night, but ended up having a call that was so awkward it quickly went viral. 

“America is a frontier nation, and the four brave astronauts of Artemis II are a modern-day, you really are modern-day pioneers, all of you,” Trump said, starting out with a congratulatory message. But then, he made things weird for one crew member. 

“And one of them happens to be a neighbor, you know who that is, right? You have a special person over there, a neighbor, and uh, we like our neighbor,” Trump continued. 

The “neighbor” in question happened to be Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, a member of the Canadian Space Agency. Trump can’t seem to be able to hide his feelings about the country, which he has antagonized by saying it should be the fifty-first U.S. state. Perhaps that’s why he couldn’t even bring himself to say the word “Canada,” even with a large Canadian flag clearly visible in the video feed from the crew alongside an American flag. 

Trump said he spoke to Canadian ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, whom he called a “very special person,” and Prime Minister Mark Carney, and only then did he even say “Canada,” claiming to have many friends there.  

“You have a lot of courage doing what you do, a lot of bravery, and a lot of genius. But they are very, very proud of you,” Trump said.

But after that, Trump went silent and the astronauts sat awkwardly during more than a full moment of silence.

“Yeah, I think we might have gotten cut off. It is a long distance.… Reception has been great,” the president said.

In the midst of an unnecessary war, a poor economy, and high gas prices, people around the world are looking at the Artemis II mission, which has brought humans further in space than ever before, as a source of inspiration. Does Trump see it that way, as well? 

The Israel Defense Forces are ordering Iranian civilians not to use the trains, warning that their lives would be at risk if they do so even ahead of President Trump’s 8 p.m. E.T. “deadline.”

“Urgent Warning to Users and Train Passengers in the Country of Iran. Dear Citizens, for the sake of your security, we kindly request that from this moment until 21:00 Iran time, you refrain from using and traveling by train throughout Iran,” the IDF Farsi account posted on X. “Your presence on trains and near railway lines endangers your life.”

Trump warned on Easter Sunday—and on the following day—that all bridges and power plants in Iran would be bombed if the country did not make a deal and reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday evening. But it appears that deadline wasn’t so firm, as bridges across the country are already being targeted. So far, bridges near the Qom, Kashan, and the Tabriz-Zanjan highway have all been struck.

The U.S. also bombed Kharg Island, a key oil export hub for Iran, overnight.

Now, according to the IDF, civilians can’t even take the train to travel within their own country. Remember when these people wanted to liberate Iranians?

President Donald Trump wants to cut more than $1.5 billion—and thousands of jobs—from the Transportation Security Administration’s budget after subjecting its employees to weeks without pay. 

The Trump administration wants to gut 9,400 workers from the 60,000-person agency, according to budget documents reviewed Monday by Reuters. 

The 2027 White House budget suggests small airports rely on private security screeners, instead of the TSA, and claims this change would cut 4,500 jobs.

“The airports that already use this program have demonstrated savings compared to Federal screening operations,” the White House budget documents stated. “The move would yield cost savings compared to Federal screening and begin reform of a troubled Federal agency.”

 Airports that used privatized security avoided longer lines caused by the partial government shutdown, but using private companies risks compromising traveler safety and has been condemned by union leaders. 

“It’s very important that people understand what privatization is,” Johnny Jones, secretary treasurer for AFGE TSA Council 100, told CNN.  “It has nothing to do with your security or your safety. It has everything to do with somebody making a profit.”

The Department of Homeland Security has also pitched ending staffing at exit lanes, which would cut another 4,800 jobs. 

Last month, Trump rejected a plan to pay TSA workers amid a partial government shutdown, because Democrats wouldn’t agree to fund the president’s reckless federal immigration enforcement. Republican lawmakers had also made efforts to stall funding TSA in order to continue the fight over immigration funding. 

Finally, last week, Trump signed an executive order to pay workers at the TSA, which has been hemorrhaging employees as paycheck after paycheck has gone unpaid, causing severe disruptions at airports across the country. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a vague law Monday that gives a handful of state officials—including him—the ability to denote groups as terrorist organizations and revoke their nonprofit status. Any college student who supports said terrorist organization can be expelled under the new law.

Florida’s House Bill 1471 appears to be targeted at Muslim organizations in the state, and DeSantis said as much in a press conference before signing the bill, calling it a means to protect against “sharia law” and boost “public safety, our culture, and our security.”

“We don’t want money flowing to these groups that are appendages of terrorist groups,” DeSantis added, mentioning the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations by name. “We’ll do millions for public safety, millions for education but never one red cent for jihad.”

CAIR is an organization whose mission is to protect the civil rights of American Muslims, and is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with chapters in states all across the country. In a statement, the executive director of CAIR-Florida, Hiba Rahim, called out DeSantis for having “falsely labeled CAIR as terrorists without lawful authority or evidence” four months before in a different bill that was later blocked in court.

“This is not just about CAIR. This expanded and deeply flawed framework can attack any organization that dares to dissent,” Rahim said about the new law. “As Floridians, together, we’ll watch how this unprecedented law is enforced, and whether it is used or abused.”

References to sharia law in the bill could also prevent Muslim schools from receiving state vouchers if they are determined to be affiliated with a group labeled a terrorist organization. Conspiracy theories over sharia law have been a right-wing fixation for decades, with conservatives falsely claiming that Muslims are trying to set up a religious legal system.

The bill doesn’t include any method for oversight of how groups would be designated as terrorist organizations, either by the courts or by Florida’s legislature.

“There is no requirement for legislative approval,” Representative Rita Harris, a Democrat, said while the bill was being debated. “There is no independent judicial finding before the designation takes effect. There is no built-in meaningful oversight mechanism to ensure transparency or review. In our system of government, we do not place sweeping, labeling authority in the hands of a few executive officials without guardrails.”

The bill will likely face legal challenges over violations of the rights to freedom of speech and religion enshrined in the First Amendment, and may not survive in court. Islamophobia, on the other hand, seems to persist in American political discourse even as its mouthpieces are consistently exposed as bigots.

President Trump ramped up a threat to commit massive war crimes in Iran on Monday, and claimed that God supports him in doing so.

“We’re giving them ’til tomorrow. Eight o’clock, Eastern Time. And after that they’re gonna have no bridges, they’re gonna have no power plants. Stone Ages, yeah,” Trump said when asked about his weekend threat that he would launch a decimating attack if Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump was then asked about what the Christian God would think of his war on Iran.

“You said, ‘Glory be to God in this conflict.’ Do you believe that God supports the United States’s actions in this war?”

“I do because God is good. And God wants to see people taken care of,” Trump said, speaking for God. “God doesn’t like what’s happening. I don’t like what’s happening.... I’ve ended eight wars.”

“You said that very little is off-limits in Iran as far as the targeting,” Politico’s Dasha Burns then asked. “Are there certain kinds of civilian targets, though, I’m thinking schools, hospitals, that you—”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Trump replied. “We have a plan—because of the power of our military—where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night. Where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12 o’clock. And it’ll happen over a period of four hours, if we want it to. We don’t want that to happen. We may even get involved with helping them rebuild their nation.”

This violent ultimatum doesn’t align with the Trump administration’s constant rhetoric suggesting that the war is all but won, and that the Iranian government is on its last legs. Trump’s war has already killed over 1,600 Iranian civilians. His threats would destroy vital routes and plunge thousands more into darkness, resulting in even more death and suffering.

President Donald Trump called former President Joe Biden “mentally retarded” twice.

Speaking at a press conference Monday, Trump repeatedly threw around the slur while bragging about his relationship with Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s reclusive authoritarian leader.

“Do you notice, he said very nice things about me. He used to call Joe Biden a mentally retarded person, OK? So, don’t tell me about your stuff,” the president said. “[Of] Joe Biden, he said, ‘He’s a mentally retarded person.’ He was so nasty to Joe Biden, it was terrible. But to me—he likes Trump.”

It doesn’t appear that Kim Jong Un ever referred to Biden as “mentally retarded.”

In 2019, North Korean state media labeled Biden an “imbecile” and a “fool of low IQ” after the former president criticized Kim as a “tyrant.”

But Trump has not been immune to North Korea’s name-calling, either: He was previously labeled a “dotard,” meaning someone who is slow and old. His supposedly cozy relationship with Kim has only become more strained since he reentered office.

Trump’s comments came amid a winding rant complaining that other countries had not helped to reopen the Strait of Hormuz (which only closed because of Trump’s decision to attack Iran).

Trump’s inability to stay on topic, or recall specific details, speaks to his increasingly apparent cognitive decline. The president’s retreat to childish attacks against his former political rival mirrors his ongoing temper tantrum meant to threaten Iran into allowing trade to resume through the region.

At a press conference Monday afternoon, President Trump nearly spilled state secrets as he rambled about how the U.S. rescued an Air Force officer after his plane was shot down in Iran.

Trump described the location as if it was from a movie, saying “you could call it central casting if you were doing a movie for location” and calling it “probably the toughest area of Iran.”

Later, Trump’s account of the late-night mission was barely coherent, as he mentioned how a rescue plane was on a “farm without a runaway” with “wet sand.”

“And it eats planes alive, and we’re waiting, and we’re saying, ‘I hope that one can land and take off.’ And they came in like magic, boom, boom, boom, one after another, it was like genius, so impressed by that,” Trump said.

“They came in so fast and so hard, and these guys knew exactly what to do. ‘Let’s go, come on, get in, let’s go,’ bwah,” Trump raved, miming a plane taking off. “They came one after another, not at the same time. They don’t want to come at the same time. They had to come right after each other. They didn’t have any room. There was barely any room to land. Tiny little patch of very wet earth and sand.”

Trump appeared so desperate to sell the rescue mission as a movie that he nearly spilled state secrets in the process.

“How many men did you send together, approximately, to the operation?” Trump asked Gen. Dan Caine in the middle of one of his rants.

“Uhhh, I’d love to keep that a secret,” Caine replied.

“It was hundreds,” Trump replied, laughing. “He’s pretty good. Is he central casting?”

Trump’s words and actions in recent years have led many, including medical professionals, to believe that he is experiencing cognitive decline, and this wasn’t even the first such instance of the day. In the morning, alongside someone in an Easter Bunny costume, he told a crowd of children at the White House for the annual Easter Egg Roll that “we have the greatest military, the most powerful military in any place in the world. You saw what happened with Venezuela.”

As the president seems to get worse and worse, will anyone of consequence—Republicans in Congress, the president’s Cabinet, or members of his family—try to rein him in for the good of the country?

Donald Trump announced his plans to arrest and detain the individual who first reported the missing airman in Iran—as soon as he figures out who it is.

In the midst of a sprawling, nonsensical speech at the White House Monday, the president claimed that the government was going to hunt down the identity of the government employee who first revealed there was a second airman lost in Iran.

“But these two extraordinary rescues—because there were two, and as you probably know we didn’t talk about the first one for an hour. Then somebody leaked something—which, we’ll hopefully find that leaker. We’re looking very hard to find that leaker,” Trump said.

“They basically said, ‘We have one, and there’s somebody missing.’ Well they didn’t know there was somebody missing until this leaker gave the information,” Trump continued.

Trump’s plan, however, apparently depends on expecting the countless news outlets that reported on the search and rescue mission to give up their sources.

“We’re going to go to the media company that released it, and we’re going to say, ‘National security, give it up or go to jail.’ And we know who and you know who we’re talking about. There’s some things you can’t do,” Trump said.

An F-15 fighter jet was downed by Iranian fire early Friday. It was immediately understood when the plane went down that there were two crew members aboard. Each F-15 jet is manned by two crew: a pilot and a weapon systems officer.

The pilot of the two-seater aircraft was rescued later that day, but the search and rescue operation for the injured weapon system officer stretched until Sunday, when they were miraculously rescued from a crevice in the Iranian mountains. Iranian forces were also rushing to locate the fallen U.S. soldier, even placing a bounty on the crew member’s head.

Trump further suggested Monday that Iran’s bounty was the fault of the American media, who he claimed should not have revealed any information about the missing crew member.

The president did not share any names as to the leaker, the journalists, or the media outlets that he believed had publicized the story. But after his comments, some members of the press pointed toward Fox News and The Washington Post for being among the first to land the scoop.

Yet those media companies were not the only ones to report that one member of the military had been unaccounted for after the initial rescue on Friday: Reuters also reported at the time that just one of the aircrew had been rescued. Hours later, the outlet reported that a search and rescue was underway.

Other journalists jumped to claim the scoop, even after Trump’s threat. Amit Segal—an Israeli journalist with ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—said on his Telegram chat later Monday that he was the first to report the story.

“As you may recall, this was first published here,” Segal wrote.

Segal has previously claimed that Netanyahu offered him a ministerial position in 2022. It is not clear what impact Segal’s potential arrest would have on U.S.-Israeli relations.

Yet when asked directly about it, Segal wavered. Speaking with the New York Post’s Caitlin Doornbos, he backpedaled his initial bravado, specifying that he’s “not sure” if he was the first to report the story.

“And anyway—I will protect my sources,” Segal said.

This story has been updated.

A boisterous Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth compared one of the rescued fighter pilots downed in Iran to Jesus Christ resurrecting from the dead and emerging from his tomb on Easter Sunday.

Hegseth made an appearance at President Trump’s briefing Monday regarding the two U.S. fighter pilots who were extracted from Iran after being shot down on Friday.

“One downed airman evaded capture for more than a day, scaling rugged ridges while hunted by the enemy. When he was finally able to activate his emergency transponder, his first message was simple, and it was powerful. He sent a message: ‘God is good,’” Hegseth said. “In that moment of isolation and danger his faith and fighting spirit shown through.”

“You see, shot down on a Friday, Good Friday. Hidden in a cave. A crevice, all of Saturday. And rescued on Sunday, flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday. A pilot reborn, all home and accounted for, a nation rejoicing. God is good,” Hegseth continued, laying it on incredibly thick as if writing the script to his dream Taylor Sheridan movie.

The frequency in which Hegseth injects his rabid, militant brand of Christianity into any public event is exhausting. The pilot who went down was not like Jesus Christ. He was sent to the Middle East to either surveil or bomb infrastructure and civilians alike. And it’s hard to understand why the very first message he sent out while trapped in a crevice while being hunted by Iranians was “God is good,” and not “HELP ME!!!” immediately followed by coordinates.