Iran responds to Trump’s profane Hormuz threat

Paula, what's the reaction to President Trump's newest demands to Iran? What can you tell us?

Well, Ben, we're getting a lot of reaction from Iranian officials to that social media post threatening to target power plants and bridges with the expletives as well. Now, we've heard from the Parliament Speaker, Mohammad Baga Galabaf. He's really emerging as a very powerful voice in Tehran at this point. And he's accused Trump of pushing the US towards a living hell and warned that the region could burn.

The Iranians have been saying that they will target in kind if there is civilian infrastructure targeted in Iran, in the Gulf region and in areas where the US has interests. Now we've also seen fairly tongue-in-cheek reaction from some of the Iranian embassies around the world too that outburst in that social media post. We've heard from the Iranian embassy in India saying swearing and throwing insults are how a sore loser brat behaves. Get a grip on yourself, old man.

Now, there's also been criticism within the US. Chuck Schumer, for example, the Senate minority leader, calling Trump an unhinged madman from that expletive laden social media post. We also had a response from the Foreign Ministry spokesperson. Let's listen to what he said.

Iran's reaction would be one of reciprocating any such attack. Our armed forces have made it clear that in case Iran's infrastructure is attacked, we would react in kind. They would, our armed forces, would target any similar infrastructure that is owned or in any way or manner related to the United States or contributes to their act of aggression against Iran. Threatening to attack a country's critical infrastructure, energy sector, it would mean that you want to put at risk the whole population.

And this is nothing less than war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Now, what we're seeing in Iran overnight and then this Monday morning with airstrikes from the US and Israel, from state media, we are seeing in Bahraistan County, this is just southwest of the capital, a densely populated area. We see a number of residential buildings that appear to have been hit there. According to Fars News Agency, they say some 13 have been killed. Then in the eastern part of Tehran, four killed in another residential area.

Now, CNN cannot independently confirm these figures, but we are also seeing loss of life in Israel and elsewhere.

First of all, there are supposed to be some sort of diplomatic talks going on. Pakistan is leading them. I can't imagine they're going well if we're back to threats online.

Yeah, Pakistan is essentially acting as a shuttle for messages between the two. But look, the two sides are so far apart. And from Iran's perspective, why not wait for President Trump to crash into one of his own deadlines once again or move it onward? Iran wins at home. Public opinion is shifting against Trump and his war. And they win in the international community.

Yeah, though it's hard to know what's going on in Iran, given their crackdown, right, as the regime tries to take hold. But to your point of them digging in, when I look at the responses from Iranian embassies from around the world, because this is all being done by social media, the one in South Africa says, seriously, think about the 25th Amendment,

Section four in Bulgaria, didn't know they had an Iranian embassy. Take it easy tiger in Austria saying he quotes stooped to an unprecedented level of begging Laced with bitter hollow rudeness and threats the desperation is almost palpable Sarah can I come to you because they are speaking Trump's language in that they're doing it hotline

They're doing it in a very sort of memable way. Can you talk about this response? Yeah, well, one thing that's interesting, always I'm thinking about the audience. So when you have Donald Trump, who has millions of followers on X and is a big global personality, I think there's a lot of visibility in terms of where his message is reaching. I don't think anyone in America knows that those embassies are tweeting at us.

Yeah, nobody's laying in bed being like, what's Bulgaria saying? No, sorry.

So those threats sort of fall on deaf ears with the American public. What Senator Kaine was saying over the weekend is that when Donald Trump makes these types of threats, that doesn't fall on deaf ears. Even with the internet blackouts in Iran,

when Donald Trump is saying something like that, the people in Iran are listening. And that matters because when you have a fighter who is being, you know, crashing down in the mountains of Iran, sometimes you need the response of the people to make a decision about how they're going to react. Are they going to turn him in or are they not? And so I don't think that this is the exact same thing.

When Donald Trump says something, it's a think that they have as much impact even though they're trying to match that tone

At one point the president says praise be to Allah. This is how Stephen a Smith talked about it

You go on social media with a profanity lace tirade And then you gonna end it by saying Praise be to Allah How do you think that's gonna help that how do you think that's going to help us throughout the world?

I mean, seriously.

One more for you. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has taken up a new religion, sort of anti-Trump at this point, she also was commenting, because there's been a lot of conversation about how the Pentagon uses religious language Anyway, so she was commenting she says everyone in his administration that claims to be Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshiping the president and Intervene in Trump's madness and then she says what we've heard a lot

This is not what we promised the American people when they overwhelmingly voted in 2024 what we promised the American people when they overwhelmingly voted in 2024.

Can you talk about either the messengers here or the message? Well, peace does not seem to be at hand in Iran, I'd say that. And the events over the weekend just seems to embolden both sides to stick it out and see what happens next. We're not getting closer to a negotiated settlement. We're getting farther away from them. The rescue of the airmen, for which we are all grateful, was a demonstration to Trump about we can do whatever we want militarily and succeed, but at a great cost. And from Iran's point of view, that is a cost worth forcing the United States to pay again.

You know, one of the things I'm noticing now is Trump is talking about power infrastructure going against that. And then I want to play one more thing for you. This is from some Israeli officials who are also talking about threatening infrastructure. It's Israel Katz, who's the defense minister.

The terrorist regime in Iran continues to launch missiles at the Israeli home front, killing and harming Israeli civilians. If they continue firing at civilians in Israel, we will strike and destroy Iran's national infrastructure. We have severely damaged the steel infrastructure and the petrochemical industry. And today and every day, there will be more to come.

Before there was a sense that the US and Israel wanted to preserve something of Iran's infrastructure.

Do I have that right? Absolutely. Is that shifting? that the US and Israel wanted to preserve something of Iran's infrastructure.

Do I have that right?

Absolutely.

Is that shifting?

Absolutely. But I think we see it, to the points that we've been making here, in a reckless way, in a way that's not really thinking strategically about what are going to be the ramifications of doing this. I was with a former NSC official over the weekend,

and they were explaining that sometimes you choose not to strike certain targets because it's just not worth It one it might be a war crime and in these cases I think this is a very legitimate question to be having about what kind of information is Pete Hexeth getting about? What targets they're choosing and what the legal not just the legal ramifications could, but the national security and the military ramifications. And I've spoken to so many officials who say like, infrastructure like this for the whole population,

when you are going to be turning off incubators for babies and things like that, that is a much, much more serious question to have, and that should be a topic of discussion with expertise. I think this, we're also seeing in in this war kind of the death of expertise. Where are the experts who are coming in and saying this may not be legal or this may not be

the right thing. I don't think those people are getting any input.

And with that initial strike that landed on a school there was like oh what's okay maybe it's the early start now we're deep in and you have even people like Ann Coulter saying online, I really wish legal experts hadn't screamed bloody murder about every little thing Trump did so they could get the authority now that he's actually committing war crimes.

Yeah. Hegseth saying that see no quarter towards the forces and also now talking about, you know, there are international criminal court judgments against Russia for doing this in Ukraine. You can militarily, under the Geneva Conventions, hit some parts of the power grid if they're purely for military purposes.

Right.

But if you do it on an extended basis and you add in things like desalination plans, which is what Trump is threatening to do, that gets you straight into the territory of war crimes. The U.S. helped write the update of the Geneva Conventions after World War II to go against

this kind of action. And never mind that they're struggling with the Strait of Hormuz right now, right? And never mind that they're struggling with the Strait of Hormuz right now, right? So as you try to expand, knowing Iran will retaliate in every direction.