Iran threatened Donald Trump with a “regret-inducing” response on Friday after he warned that the U.S. Army is “locked and loaded” if Tehran kills protesters.
In a post on his platform Truth Social, Trump said the U.S. military would “come to the rescue” of Iranian protesters if they are “violently killed” during the most significant demonstrations in the country since 2022.
At least seven people have been killed so far in violence surrounding the demonstrations, sparked in part by the collapse of Iran’s rial currency. Protestors have been heard calling for the overthrow of supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
“If Iran shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue,” Trump warned. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.
“Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J.TRUMP” he added. It was not clear from his comments what assistance the US would offer the protesters.
Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to the Ayatollah, said Iran’s national security was a “red line, not material for adventurist tweets”.
“Any intervening hand nearing Iran security on pretexts will be cut off with a regret-inducing response,” he said in a post on X.
Shortly after, Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker who serves as the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, claimed without evidence that Israel and the US were stoking the demonstrations.
“Trump should know that intervention by the U.S. in the domestic problem corresponds (to) chaos in the entire region and the destruction of the U.S. interests,” he wrote on X, which the Iranian government blocks. “The people of the U.S. should know that Trump began the adventurism. They should take care of their own soldiers.”
The protests in Iran have primarily centred on the country’s economic hardships, many of which have persisted since the U.S. first imposed tariffs on the country’s government in 2018.
The last widespread protests in Iran took place in 2022 following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a young woman accused by morality police of not wearing her veil properly. Her death triggered protests that spread across the country and rapidly escalated into calls for the overthrow of Iran’s four-decade-old Islamic theocracy.
One protestor told The Guardian that Iran’s currency crashing to a new low on Sunday sparked the new wave of protests.
“What will my children eat? Do we have to bring suitcases of cash to simply buy bread? Do you find that normal?” he told the newspaper.
Social media video obtained by the BBC showed cars being set ablaze and roads blocked in the capital Tehran, as well as Azna and Kouhdasht.
However, one of Trump’s former loyalists has slammed the president for wanting to get involved in unrest overseas.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene ended 2025 with a furious post on X, in which she claimed that Americans were planning a “tax revolt” over Trump’s involvement in “foreign wars.”
“Trump spent the weekend with Zelensky and Netanyahu, Pentagon fails audit again, meanwhile Americans are planning a tax revolt because they don’t know what else to do to get their elected officials to stop their money from being given to thieves, foreigners, and foreign wars,” she wrote.
Greene previously criticized Trump for authorizing a strike on three nuclear facilities in Iran in June 2025.
Nicknamed Operation Midnight Hammer, the strike saw fourteen “bunker buster” bombs being unloaded on the facilities in a bid to prevent Iran from allegedly developing a nuclear weapon.
Trump claimed that Operation Midnight Hammer had “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment plants, despite a Pentagon assessment determining that the strike had merely set Iran’s program back by months, according to the BBC.
The bombing was the U.S.’s only direct involvement in Israel’s war with Iran, which also ended in June.
Greene publicly defended former Fox News host and isolationistTucker Carlson at the time, after the president branded him “kooky” for his criticism of the attack.
“And foreign wars/intervention/regime change put America last, kill innocent people, are making us broke, and will ultimately lead to our destruction,” Greene blasted. “That’s not kooky.
“That’s what millions of Americans voted for,” she added. “It’s what we believe is America First.”
As tensions soar with Iran just days into 2026, Retired Lieutenant Colonel Tony Shaffer warned that the U.S. needs to exercise extreme caution if further strikes go ahead.
“Well, it depends on what the target is,” he told The Chris Salcedo Show on Thursday. “There are a number of things that are going on right now that we could be helpful with.
“One of those things, obviously, is the unrest in the street,” he added. “We want to make it very clear, we’re against the mullahs and theocracy, not the people of Iran.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian warned on X that his country would respond to any aggression from the U.S.
“Answer of Islamic Republic of Iran to any cruel aggression will be harsh and discouraging,” he wrote on X, in a post translated by CBS.
