Iran's Capital Just FELL... as Trump Tells Protesters "KEEP GOING"

Things are so wild in Iran, the capital is now unrecognizable, and Trump is telling the protesters to keep going.

Welcome back. Now a revolution underway in Iran. Massive protests against Ayatollah Khamenei and its brutal regime are persisting in Iran. As Iranian citizens take to the streets over its failed economy and skyrocketing inflation up 50%. 50% inflation surging more

than 70% 70% Trump has warned Khomeini there will be severe consequences.

Iran's in big trouble. It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible. I've made the statement very strongly that if they start killing people like they have in the past, we will get involved, we'll be hitting them

very hard where it hurts. Wow they should peacefully step down. As protesters ramped up on Thursday

the Ayatollah dug in by cutting all internet service and international calls inside the country. Wow, talk about human rights. The internet has been out for 60 hours so far with Iranian officials also trying to jam up

Elon Musk's Skylink to further isolate the country.

Oh.

As protesters have heeded the call from my next guest, the exiled crown prince of Iran, his royal highness Reza Pahlavi, call on the people to mobilize and take to the streets against the authoritarian government.

Wow.

Yeah, they're on the streets already.

Demonstrators calling for Pahlavi to return and to lead Iran. Pahlavi's father, Mohammad Reza Pahlav, was Shah of Iran from 1941 until 1979, overseeing key modernization initiatives in the country with close ties to both the United States and to Israel. Wow. Until the extremists and the terrorists overwhelmed the monarchy.

That's exactly what happened.

Forcing the Shah and his wife, Empress Farah Pahlavi, to flee and the Ayatollah to return from exile.

And that has not worked out very well and the Iranian people are doing something about

it. President Trump says that the country wants to negotiate a possible nuclear deal, but Iran's crackdown on anti-government protests has led to more than 10,000 others being arrested. That's terrible. A source with the administration telling News Nation that President Trump has a range of options in front of him as he weighs a final decision.

Airstrikes would be one of the many, many options that are on the table for the commander-in-chief. Diplomacy is always the first option for the president He's told all of you last night that what you're hearing publicly from the Iranian regime is quite differently from the messages The administration is receiving privately and I think the president is interested in exploring those messages. They're begging for mercy and you know what's crazy

We were told that if the United States and Israel struck targets in Iran, that country was going to mobilize and attack us back. But that hasn't happened. It looks like those strikes about a year ago may have totally doomed this regime.

Iran then shifted overnight from a US-allied monarchy to an anti-Western Islamic regime, soon to become the largest state sponsor of terrorism, funding Hezbollah and Hamas, among other groups.

Who were operating in Venezuela.

President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio posting this weekend on social media that the U.S. stands with the people of Iran, with the president writing this, is not the

Obama administration when it comes to standing up to the Iranians.

Who paid them and propped them up.

Ayatollah and his religious henchmen. And standing behind the people of Iran, protesting for a better life.

Yeah, it's only one.

We have seen other times when the people have risen up, but it feels different this time. You called for the people to mobilize for two straight nights this week. Does it feel different? Assess for us what is taking place this weekend in Iran? This is a moment that is defining

Despite being completely cut off from the world internet shutdown and for regime that is massacring its own people This is an opportunity to liberate that nation Remember the same thugs that hate America also hate their own people

That's right

And this is an opportunity to help a nation that starves for liberty, that starts to be rejoined with a free world, and to have the same relationship that we had with America before this revolution occurred, to liberate ourselves and come back to the fold and contribute to world peace and stability regionally and beyond.

And they were prosperous. Now your highness you have called for the opportunity to become the transitional leader you've said many times with me on this program you are hoping to be a transitional leader. What is your plan in that transition?

Yeah what's that going to look like?

What would the first 100 days look like? Because we know that these protests are economic in nature. They are about food and life and democracy second.

Bring in peace, open up the economy.

Maria, I'm a fighter pilot. I've trained all my life for exactly this moment and people are calling on me to step in and lead this transition. I'm here to lead and help our nation go through that transition. But beyond liberation we have to have a plan, a plan for a stable, smooth transition, a plan that, unlike other scenarios we witness in our neighborhood, like the de-Baathification in Iraq, will not lead to chaos.

We have to ensure stability. We have to be able to protect the citizenry. We have to be able to stabilize the economy. And for that, we have very comprehensive plans. I'm helped by numbers of economists, scientists, jurists and specialists in every field so we can in fact address all of these issues the moment the opportunity comes.

More importantly is what we're doing right now. As you can see people are still fighting despite this crackdown. They hope that there will be assistance in protecting them from further bloodshed.

That's what a lot of people think is going to happen, especially with President Trump coming out and telling the protesters not to stop. It's a very interesting statement that he's made recently on this.

Short and to the point, quote, leave Iran now. Have a plan for departing Iran that does not rely on the US government help.

That's also an interesting statement.

This follows President Trump's warning to the Islamic Republic as reports reveal hundreds of civilians have been killed during anti-government protests. The White House also revealing the private messages Iran is sending back to the United

States.

Yeah, what are they sending? Watch this. What the Iranian regime is saying publicly is quite different from the messages they are sending to the United States and the Trump administration privately. President Trump, as for him, he has always expressed that diplomacy is the first option.

All they need to do is say that they'll step down.

However, he is unafraid to use the lethal force and might of the United States military if and when he deems that necessary. And what does that look like in the minds of the leaders of Iran who are presiding over

its destruction, who are supposed to lead peacefully and just won't do it? What is that like in their minds with the recent military action in Venezuela? Do they think President Trump's playing around?

Nobody knows that better than the Iranian regime.

Right.

Fox News contributor and former CIA station chief Dan Hoffman joins me now. Dan, good morning to you. There's this near communications blackout inside Iran right now. That's terrible.

To try and make it difficult for protesters to organize and continue.

They're trying to get Iran to turn on Starlink over here. Those who have been able to get their message out to the outside world do say that there are many Iranians who are still dedicated and committed to this cause despite this ongoing violence against them. Where do you think these protests stand right now and could this moment actually lead to

significant change? That's what everyone wants to know. Yeah I think the Iranian

regime is under more threat right now domestically than they ever have been before. I think that's reflected in the outreach on the part of the Ayatollah to the United States.

And you know why that is? Venezuela is not around to help these guys evade sanctions and they don't have a sympathetic president in the White House of America who's willing to let these guys get away with exploiting their own country so that they can stay in power. Those two things are huge.

Some negotiations potentially about the nuclear program. Iran knows that their economy is in free fall. They're suffering from a shortage of water. All of those things.

Every day it gets worse.

Have fueled these protests and it threatens Iran's regime and so what they want is to negotiate and put an end to those sanctions. I think the Trump administration will certainly listen. It's a good opportunity for us to collect information on how bad things are inside Iran. But I think the Trump administration might do well to let these protests play out and not be in a rush to eliminate or reduce those sanctions which are having such a serious

impact on the regime's security.

Now that their sanctions evading machine, which they had in conjunction with Venezuela, which would ship them oil, which would get refined, kept, some of it kept as payment by the Iranian regime, and then the rest sent back to Venezuela, which would then get sold over to Cuba,

the sanctions are even worse now. And this guy's right, the ball is totally in President Trump's court. America doesn't have to rush to make a deal with Iran to save it. Any deal would prop them up at this point.

Well on that very point, President Trump posted this to True Social yesterday. Effective immediately, any country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America. This order is final and conclusive. And this whole protest started as an economic protest and these new tariffs certainly aren't going to make anything easier on the regime.

The president is going to be weighing his wide range of options today with top national security officials. What do you think the president should do moving forward?

Wait and be firm.

I think we have a number of options. I think the president is going to be looking at obviously the military option to strike IRGC facilities.

They're the ones that are bringing down the oppression on those protesters. If they try to roll tanks through the streets of their capital and they want to take out their frustration on their own people and some major escalation, I don't think they're going to get very far. I think they're being watched right now. I think they know it. And with the whole backdrop of the operation in Venezuela just happening,

they've got to be thinking twice about doing anything to clamp down on this more than they already have. Certainly an option, cyber strikes is another one, delivering internet to the Iranian people so that they can coordinate these protests and of course we've seen the sanctions increased further and remember the targeted countries are India, China and Russia, those countries that do business with Iran. I'm sure that the president is going to be receiving an intelligence briefing from director

CIA Ratcliffe on exactly where these pain points are and how the CIA might assess Iran would react, the impact on domestic unrest inside the country. Lots of very heavy, weighty decisions for the administration today. The president will have his team around him.

But the big question is, how do you preserve the protesters? Because these are the people that want freedom. These are the people that are trying to take back their country. How do you protect them while getting rid of their regime at the exact same time? I think that we're looking at the only way to do it.

... where he said, help is on its way to the Iranians. That's what he's saying. He also said, meetings with Iranian officials have now been cancelled.

Oh, so he won't meet with them.

What do you make of all that?

Wow, so he's not meeting with them.

Well, look, it seems that this latest post by Donald Trump might be confirming a report that came out by the Wall Street Journal that said that Donald Trump, according to White House officials, was leaning towards a possible military action in Iran and that his vice president, J.D. Vance, and Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, were sort of trying to reel him back in towards the diplomatic aspect of it before thinking about military action. This post, when he says help is on its way

and that the meetings have been canceled, seem to indicate that what he was hinting at on Air Force One on Sunday, and you see there the actual words of the US president who tells the Iranian.

If you're running Iran right now and the country's imploding, the currency is in freefall and people are taking to the streets and you hear the US president that just ousted Maduro, took him out of his bedroom at 2 o'clock in the morning before he even knew where he was and had him in a New York City jail, you got to be thinking to yourself what's the point of sticking around and ruling over a country that is already Imploded on itself these guys should just peacefully leave before something happens. They should just leave the country

That's it. Turn it over to the people protesters to keep protests But going back to what he said on Sunday on Air Force One, he said Talking about those potential talks with the Iranians. He, we might need to act before we actually get to a meeting. So all of this might be indicating that maybe the US president is going for a potential military action. It could be also that there will be some type of action

that is not necessarily full-on military strike, that could be cyber attacks. They are one of the options that were put on the table. We'll see if we know a little bit more once that formal briefing takes place but the White House spokesperson...

So the US has to be prepared for a couple of different options in this case. First of all we got a lot of military bases in the Middle East, not everybody's aware of this. Those are within striking distance of the Iranian regime right now. So if they try to do something like that, the response might need to be more than a cyber attack.

But personally, if the country's currency's already in free fall, if they've already got hyperinflation over there, if they're having fuel shortages and everything, I don't know what good a cyber attack is going to do. The Internet is already out in that country.

I feel like so many across the world are just on edge while we wait for the decision that President Trump makes here. What kind of threat are American troops under as this tension grows?

Well, Iran's speaker of the parliament issued a very serious threat towards America, saying that if the country forcefully responds to Iran's crackdown protests on the protests, US military bases and ships in the region could be targets for the Iranian military.

Now to put that data into perspective,

take a look at this map right here because military data show more than 30,000 service members remain stationed within the range of Iran's short range missiles, while an additional 9,000 service members remain stationed within the range of Iran's short-range missiles, while an additional 9,000 could be reached with medium-range ballistic missiles.

So right now, Israel remains on high alert because they too have received threats from Iran. NATO watching this situation very closely, and no doubt, countries along shipping routes in the Middle East also watching this situation closely.

So the fear with also watching this situation close. So the fear with something like this is always that the United States personnel that are in the Middle East are at risk. But even when the Iranian nuclear program was hit several months ago, these forces were still out there in many ways. There were US personnel in the Middle East who were not harmed when Iran did try and retaliate.

Remember, they tried. They launched a whole bunch of rockets. They did their best to strike back. And the U.S. already knows what that looks like. But what the Iranian regime does not know is what the United States could do. Because things happened during the Maduro raid that we're just finding out about. There are reports that weaponry was used that totally incapacitated Maduro's guards and his security forces and just paralyzed them. They couldn't fight back. They were just totally wiped out. If you're the Iranian regime right now, you got to be thinking

to yourself, they know, the United States being they, the United States knows what their retaliation looks like because we've already seen it. They have no idea what President Trump is capable of. They have no idea what his next move is. All they know is that he recently told Maduro in Venezuela, leave the country, protect your family. Maduro said he wasn't going and then it ended for him very quickly. family. Maduro said he wasn't going and then it ended for him very quickly.

What do you think's gonna happen next? I'll see you in the next video.