Iranian officials are deploying every weapon in their arsenal against Donald Trump—including their own citizens.
In a video message, Iranian official Alireza Rahimi urged “all young people, athletes, artists, students and university students, and their professors” to form human chains around power plants, following Trump’s shocking warning on Truth Social that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if a deal is not reached to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by 8 p.m. Tuesday.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump posted Tuesday morning, in an ultimatum critics have decried as a war crime. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
But instead of reopening the vital waterway—through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes—Iran’s leadership appears to be bracing for impact. Rahimi, identified by Iranian state television as the secretary of the Supreme Council of Youth and Adolescents, instructed young people to station themselves outside “Power plants that are our national assets and capital, regardless of any taste or political viewpoint, [that] belong to the future of Iran and to the Iranian youth,” starting at 2 p.m., according to the Associated Press.
Footage aired on Iranian state media shows crowds gathering outside electricity stations and power plants, some holding banners as part of the coordinated display.
Meanwhile, Trump’s own party is fracturing over his ultimatum, with some on the right going so far as to call for his removal from office.
“25TH AMENDMENT!!! Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness,” former congresswoman and Trump ally-turned-foe Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X on Tuesday.
Trump has repeatedly fixated on the Strait of Hormuz—which connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea—kicking off Easter Sunday with a profanity-laced Truth Social tirade in which he praised Allah.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” Trump, 79, began.
“Open the F—n’ Strait, you crazy b—--ds, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH!” he raged. “Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”
Trump’s menacing threat came even as he downplayed the importance of the Strait of Hormuz during a televised address on Wednesday.
“The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won’t be taking any in the future. We don’t need it. We haven’t needed it, and we don’t need it,” he said at the time.
Congress, meanwhile, remains in recess, limiting its ability to respond to the conflict Trump launched without congressional approval.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
