WASHINGTON — President Trump called on Iranian protesters to take over government buildings Tuesday in one of his starkest calls yet for a regime-change revolution as the reported death toll from anti-government unrest soared past 2,000.
“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA!!!”
The president’s declaration that meetings are off indicates that special envoy Steve Witkoff will not hold talks with Iranian officials who last week offered negotiations with Washington to stave off US intervention.
Trump on Monday afternoon declared an economic embargo of Iran — threatening 25% tariffs on any country that continues trade relations with Tehran — further destabilizing the country after economic concerns sparked the weeks of ongoing unrest.
Trump has been coy about whether he will follow through on threatened military action over the killings of protesters — as he was ahead of his June airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear program and the Jan. 3 Delta Force raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
A small team of Trump’s senior aides, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance, has been preparing options since Friday.
“On Friday, Vance, Rubio, and key NSC officials met to begin prepare a suite of options to present to Trump in the coming days,” a source familiar with discussions told The Post. “They are presenting options to him ranging from a diplomatic approach to military strikes.”
More than 2,000 people have been killed in Iran during the anti-government protests, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, of whom 1,847 were protesters, and 135 were security personnel.
A government-imposed internet blackout has limited circulation of images and information on the protests, which witnesses have described as morphing into slaughter as the Islamic Republic cracks down.
BBC Persian, citing anecdotes from on-the-ground Iranians, described carnage across the country’s major cities.
A mortuary worker in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city located in the country’s northeast, told the outlet that on Friday, there were 200 bodies with head injuries.
In Fardis, west of Tehran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s paramilitary Basij fighters suddenly attacked protesters Friday, with the result that “two or three people were killed in every alley,” a witness told the BBC.
At a single hospital in eastern Tehran, an employee said there were roughly 40 bodies on Thursday, the British broadcaster reported.
Although Iran has seen nationwide protests before, the violence is on a scale unseen since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled pro-American Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and swept Ayatollah Khomeini to power.
Trump has not endorsed a particular outcome of the protests and said Thursday he did not think it was “appropriate” for him to talk to the last shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, who has been urging on the protests.
“I think that we should let everybody go out there, and we’ll see who emerges,” the president said.
https://nypost.com/2026/01/13/us-news/trump-tells-iranians-keep-protesting-says-help-is-on-its-way-and-regime-will-pay-a-big-price/
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