President Donald Trump arrives from the Blue Room to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington.Alex Brandon/Pool/AP
Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.
President Donald Trump gave Americans a bizarre, expletive-filled Easter Sunday message, celebrating US plans for war crimes against Iran following what appears to be the rescue of two airmen shot down in southern Iran.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday morning. “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
As a text launched on the morning of one of the most significant religious holidays on the Christian calendar, the post is disturbing enough, but it becomes even more so when read aloud, as Jake Tapper did on CNN’s Sunday show, State of the Union:
Aside from the president’s uninhibited vocabulary, attacking civilian infrastructure such as power plants is generally considered a war crime by international law experts.
“Given that such power plants are essential for meeting the basic needs and livelihoods of tens of millions of civilians, attacking them would be disproportionate and thus unlawful under international humanitarian law,” Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior director of research, advocacy, policy and campaigns, said when such threats initially surfaced, “even in the limited cases that they qualify as military targets.”
Trump’s repeated belligerence and the continued and escalating military aggression in Iran, which has reportedly killed at least 2,000 people since the US and Israel launched the war on February 28, framed the sermon of Pope Leo XIV, who proclaimed in his Easter message on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica that the world was becoming “accustomed to violence.”
“Let those who have weapons lay them down,” he said. “Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace. Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue.”
Pope Leo has long criticized the war and, for the first time, explicitly mentioned Trump last Tuesday, saying he hoped the president would find an “off-ramp” to end the fighting.
But perhaps the president was just overtaken with joy on Sunday with the news that the US military had rescued the second American pilot who was shot down while flying over southern Iran on Friday. The two-member fighter jet was the first US aircraft to crash in Iranian territory since the beginning of the war. The first pilot was rescued just hours after the crash.
“At my direction, the U.S. Military sent dozens of aircraft, armed with the most lethal weapons in the World, to retrieve him,” Trump posted in celebration on Truth Social just after midnight on Sunday. “The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations, without a SINGLE American killed, or even wounded, just proves once again, that we have achieved overwhelming Air Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian skies.”
As Amin Saikal, a professor of Middle East and Central Asian studies at the Australian National University, told Al Jazeera on Sunday, rescuing the two pilots allows Trump to more freely pursue his military strategy, namely, the 48-hour deadline he imposed on Iran’s leadership Saturday morning to open the Strait of Hormuz before “all Hell will reign down on them.”
Later on Sunday, Trump told ABC News‘ Rachel Scott that if Iran does not agree to a deal, “we’re blowing up the whole country.”
