World

Trump and top Iranian officials exchange threats over protests roiling Iran

newsnow9January 3, 2026011 mins

Washington: President Trump proclaimed Friday that the US is “locked and loaded and ready” to help protesters in Iran who have risen up against that country’s hardline Islamic regime in widespread demonstrations.

“If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue,” Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly before 3 a.m. ET.

“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” the president added, without elaborating.

At least sven people have been killed so far in violence accompanying six days of protests triggered by an economic crisis brought about in part by US sanctions.

In response to Trump, Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker who serves as the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, alleged on X, which the Tehran government blocks, that Israel and the US were stoking the demonstrations.

“Trump should know that US interference in this internal matter would mean destabilizing the entire region and destroying America’s interests,” Larijani wrote. “The American people should know — Trump started this adventurism. They should be mindful of their soldiers’ safety.”

Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who previously was the council’s secretary for years, wrote on X that “any interventionist hand that gets too close to the security of Iran will be cut.”

“Iranians know US ‘rescue’ record well,” added Shamkhani, “from Iraq and Afghanistan to Gaza.”

The protests are the most open internal challenge to Iran’s regime since the US bombed three nuclear facilities in June and are the biggest in Iran since the 2022 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody.

This week’s demonstrations have not been as intense or widespread as those surrounding the death of Amini, who was detained for not wearing her hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.

The current protests began on the bazaars, where most Iranians buy their daily goods and were in response to the rapid depreciation of Iran’s currency.

Trump’s intentions are the topic of significant discussion in Washington, with some insiders telling The Post that they believe the president is strategically saber-rattling — after he threatened Monday to “knock the hell out of” Iran if it rebuilds its nuclear program while in the same breath saying he believes he can cut a deal with the theocracy.

John Ullyot, who worked in Trump’s National Security Council during his first term and served as the top Pentagon spokesman last year, noted that the message was posted at a poignant moment.

“Trump is the master at putting Iran in a box with his postings at exactly the right time. Remember what he did exactly six years ago today when he took out Iran’s chief terrorist leader Soleimani,” Ullyot said, noting the Jan. 3 anniversary of Trump’s assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Iraq.

“Iran’s leaders know not to mess with Trump, and his messages reinforce that to its top leaders.”

Two others close to the Trump administration told The Post that there’s little internal expectation that the president actually will attack — despite Trump assassinating Soleimani in 2020 and then bombing Iran’s nuclear sites in June.

“The reality is that unless President Trump redeploys a substantial portion of the U.S. military to the Middle East and engage in yet another major land war in the region, it is hard to see this as more than rhetorical support to the protesters,” said one source close to the administration.

Trump’s prior attacks on Iran yielded little material consequence — with Tehran in 2020 launching a volley of rockets at US troops in northern Iraq, causing dozens of mild and traumatic-brain injuries but no deaths, and last year launching a performative barrage of about a dozen missiles toward a US base in Qatar.

“What happened after both incidents? There was a telegraphed response from the Iranians, and we back-channeled to each other that we wouldn’t escalate further,” the source said. “Hard to see Iranians doing that if we are now trying to do regime change.”

A second source close to the administration said that many officials believe Trump is “basically just doing some saber rattling” that only loosely attaches himself to the outcome of the protests.

“I don’t really see any upside to [bombing] besides depressing his political base,” this person said.

“In recent years, far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins. They loved using our very powerful military,” Trump said in a widely watched speech last May in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.

“I believe it is God’s job to sit in judgment, my job to defend America and to promote the fundamental interest of stability, prosperity, and peace,” Trump added in that speech.

“In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built, and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.”

However, Trump’s attack on Iran’s nuclear sites last year also surprised some insiders and was kept a closely guarded secret until it happened.

Trump has railed for years against American efforts to democratize Iran’s neighbors, Iraq and Afghanistan through military force.

Inflation is a major force in the ongoing protests. While the official rate on international exchanges is $1 to about 42,000 rials, street merchants are valuing $1 at about 1.4 million rials.

That price represents a 230% surge from the same time last year, with similar increases afflicting other popular goods as the consumer price inflation rate soars to 48.6%.

“[Ayatollah] Ali Khamenei has spent over four decades chasing war, missiles and chanting, ‘Death to this or that.’ Now we can’t even afford rice,” one shopper in Karaj, just west of Tehran, told independent outlet Iran International.

The protests have shut down businesses, universities, and government offices across the country, with people turning Khamenei’s chants against him with shouts of, “Death to the dictator.”

Iran has claimed it is no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program to ease sanctions. However, those talks have yet to happen as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned Tehran against reconstituting its atomic program.