Trump revives Iran regime change speculation with cryptic call for people to ‘rise up’

President Donald Trump revived speculation over regime change in Iran Tuesday night, openly asking when Iranians would “rise up and fight” as his administration intensified military and economic pressure on a government US officials say is increasingly vulnerable.

“I’m not trying to force Iran to the bargaining table,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Tuesday. “I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing.”

“They are just playing out the inevitable,” Trump added. “When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?”

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Trump sharpened those remarks later Wednesday when Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked whether he would send the CIA to arm Iranians if he wants them to “rise up and fight.” 

“I’d love to tell you that, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to say,” Trump responded from the Oval Office.

Trump said he understood why Iranians have not risen in larger numbers, arguing that protesters face deadly repression from the government. 

“Most people can’t kill their own people like that. Most people try and reason when they talk. And then there might be an overthrow. In Iran, they kill people. … They shoot them right between the eyes. They have two forms: machine guns and snipers. … They like the snipers better because all they do is have a crowd of 200,000 people, and a person goes down here right between the eyes, and they’ll have three snipers doing it. And, it’s a horrible thing to watch,” he said. 

“So that’s why it’s not happening,” the president added, “And who can blame them? Who can blame them? But the regime is getting weaker by the day… And at some point, they’re not going to be able to shoot so easily because I think the people aren’t going to take it,” Trump said. “But I did pose that question because, you know, it would be time.”

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described Iran as being in a “death spiral” during remarks Monday, arguing that economic pressure was rapidly narrowing the government’s options.

“They are panicked. They are resorting to kinetic because they are getting squeezed economically,” Bessent told Ed Lawrence on Fox Business.

Bessent said Iran could eventually face one of three outcomes: “Either the IRGC are going to turn on each other, the people are going to turn on them, or they are going to come to the table and want to do a deal that they can stick with.”

“They are in the death throes,” he added, comparing Iran’s deterioration to bankruptcy occurring “slowly, then quickly.”

Miad Maleki, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former Treasury sanctions official, told Fox News Digital that Washington does not need to choose between invading Iran to overthrow the government and striking another agreement with Tehran.

“It’s very clear U.S. government is not in the business of regime change anymore,” Maleki said. “And I think it’s very clear that we’re not going to have boots on the ground to invade Iran. And I don’t think we need that.”

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Instead, Maleki argued Washington should “contain this regime, cut off its economic lifelines, empower the Iranian people” and prepare for another wave of demonstrations inside Iran.

“We need to be prepared to support the Iranian people in a way that they can be empowered and take the government back,” he said, stressing the importance of ensuring protesters maintain access to the internet so they can communicate, mobilize and make their voices heard.

Maleki described Iran’s leadership as the weakest it has been since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and argued that further Iranian military escalation could deepen its vulnerability rather than restore lost leverage.

The debate comes as reports of localized economic protests continue to emerge from inside Iran.

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The National Council of Resistance of Iran, an exiled Iranian opposition coalition, said Tuesday that workers, retirees, drivers and job-seeking young people demonstrated in several cities on Aug. 31. The group alleged security forces opened fire on job seekers in Gachsaran and Ahvaz and reported separate demonstrations over unpaid wages, inflation, fuel shortages and working conditions. Those specific claims have not been independently verified by Fox News Digital.

Iran analyst Benny Sabti also told Fox News Digital that deteriorating living conditions could become a catalyst for broader unrest. “People are hungry,” Sabti said, predicting Iranians would “take the streets again.”

“Hunger is humiliating,” he said, arguing that economic desperation could eventually outweigh fear of the government’s security apparatus.

The political stakes are rising alongside a dramatic military escalation. US forces carried out another wave of strikes Tuesday against Iranian air-defense systems, radar installations, maritime assets and mine-laying capabilities, according to US Central Command, while Iran retaliated with missile and drone attacks against US assets across the region.

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For Trump, however, Tuesday night’s post suggested the question may no longer be only whether economic pressure brings Tehran back to negotiations — but what happens inside Iran if it does not.