Easter Sunday started at 8:03 a.m. on Truth Social with a profanity-filled ultimatum to Iran and a sign-off that nobody was expecting from a self-described Christian president.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” Trump wrote. “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F****n’ Strait, you crazy b*****ds, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
The post came hours after Trump announced the second F-15 crew member had been rescued from deep inside Iran in a daring overnight operation. “We have rescued the seriously wounded, and really brave, F-15 Crew Member/Officer, from deep inside the mountains of Iran,” Trump posted.
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“The Iranian Military was looking hard, in big numbers, and getting close. He is a highly respected Colonel. This type of raid is seldom attempted because of the danger to ‘man and machine.’ It just doesn’t happen!”
Trump followed the Truth Social post with a Fox News interview in which he told correspondent Trey Yingst he believed a deal with Iran could come by Monday.
“I think there is a good chance tomorrow, they are negotiating now,” he said. Then in the same breath: “If they don’t make a deal and fast, I’m considering blowing everything up and taking over the oil. You’re going to see bridges and power plants dropping all over their country.”
Targeting civilian infrastructure would constitute a war crime under international law. Over 100 legal experts said so in a signed letter last week. The Trump administration has not addressed that.
While Trump was posting f-bombs and praising Allah, Pope Leo XIV was delivering his first Easter Urbi et Orbi address from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica to 50,000 people in the square below. The first American pope chose different words.
“Let those who have weapons lay them down. Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace. Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue.” He added that the world risked becoming “accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent.”
Leo had already made a rare direct appeal to Trump last week, urging him to find an “off-ramp.” “Hopefully he’s looking for a way to decrease the amount of violence,” the pope told journalists outside his residence in Castel Gandolfo.
New York priest Father Brian Jordan was less diplomatic when asked about a White House Easter luncheon at which Trump’s spiritual adviser compared him to Jesus Christ.
“Donald Trump is no more Jesus Christ than I am an astronaut on Pluto,” Jordan said from his church on West 31st Street in Manhattan. On the subject of Trump sending others to a war he considers unjust while having dodged Vietnam himself, Jordan added: “He won’t go to war, but sends other people to a war that’s not just. That’s not Christ-like.”
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
