President Donald Trump escalated his threats to target Iran’s infrastructure if it does not open up the Strait of Hormuz, warning the country will be “living in Hell” in an expletive-filled message on social media Sunday.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform. “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
The profane threat, which landed Easter morning a few hours after Pope Leo XIV issued a call for nations to choose peace, heightens earlier warnings from Trump over a vital shipping route Tehran has effectively closed since the United States and Israel launched their attacks on Iran about five weeks ago. Gas prices have risen sharply as Iran limits the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, ramping up the political pressure on Trump to end the conflict he started.
The president, who has previously called on other countries to help open the waterway, has sent mixed messages about his plans in recent days. Last week he said that “what happens in the strait, we’re not going to have anything to do with.” He has also urged allies reliant on oil from the strait to “build up some delayed courage” and “just TAKE IT.”
Trump said in an address to the country last week that the U.S. military operation is “nearing completion” and that he expects to wind down the war in a couple weeks. He also assessed that the strait would open up “naturally” after the war ends.
But even after the assassinations of senior Iranian leaders by Israel and the U.S., Iran’s remaining leaders have been emboldened in their efforts to inflict further economic pain, pushing Tehran and Washington further apart in negotiations.
Brett McGurk, a former senior national security official under several presidents, including Trump, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Trump’s latest Truth Social threat appeared to be an effort to “escalate to try to get a deal.” But McGurk said he was skeptical it would achieve that.
“The president in his national address the other night suggested the Strait of Hormuz is not an objective for us,” McGurk said, and now, he is suggesting it is. “It’s just kind of shifting objectives in terms of what exactly we’re trying to achieve here.”
Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, in an appearance on ABC’s “This Week” said that the conflict in Iran was inevitable — and that Trump was intervening to stop Iran from being able to “project force against the United States and our allies.” Asked if the Strait of Hormuz can be opened without putting U.S. troops on the ground, Turner said he doesn’t think ground troops are going to be necessary.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) said on “This Week” that “there is no circumstance where U.S. ground troops should be sent over to the Middle East” and called the conflict a “reckless war of choice without any plan, any strategic objectives and no clear exit strategy.”
“This war is already deeply unpopular, for obvious reasons amongst the American people,” he said. “The American people are not going to accept ground troops being put into harm’s way in this war of choice, when there’s no clear evidence that it actually is designed to improve our national security interests.”
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