Trump to Fox News: Iranians are ‘petrified’ of taking to the streets against regime

US President Donald Trump phones in to a Fox News talk show, where he is asked to respond to voters who are upset about him launching a war against Iran after campaigning on not getting into such conflicts.

“I have to do something in terms of making America great and keeping America great,” Trump says, arguing that Iran with a nuclear weapon would undermine those goals.

To make his point, he recalls his uncle, who was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 41 years and would tell him “horrible” stories about the potential of nuclear power.

Trump is then asked about the potential for Iranians to take to the streets as he urged them to do in his February 28 speech announcing the launch of the war.

Trump has since tapered down his enthusiasm about the idea of regime change, as the Islamic Republic appears to be weathering the war after nearly four weeks.

The US president tells Fox News that Iranians are “petrified” of taking to the streets.

“One side has guns, and they have very nasty guns… and what they do is they shoot you. The people are brave, but they’re not brave when they see people gunned down left and right,” Trump says.

“It started with the women about a year ago. We had 250,000 women. They had women being shot right between the eyes from snipers,” he says, apparently referring to the Women, Life, Freedom protests that took place in Iran three and a half years ago, not last year.