President Donald Trump threatened the Iranian regime again on Thursday while speaking with reporters on Air Force One after his attendance at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos.
He confirmed that his administration sent a “big force going toward Iran” and that he was ready to follow up on prior threats of military intervention if the regime continues killing protesters amid widespread unrest in the country.
“I'd rather not see anything happen, but we're watching them very closely,” Trump said. “I saw 837 hangings on Thursday. They would have been dead. Every one of them would have been hung.”
The president said 837 Iranians “were going to be hung on Thursday, and I said ‘If you hang those people, you’re going to be hit harder than you’ve ever been hit. It’ll make what we did to your Iran nuclear look like peanuts.’”
And an hour before this horrible thing was going to take place, they canceled it. And they actually said they canceled it. They didn't postpone it. They canceled it. So that was a good sign. But we have an armada. We have a massive fleet heading in that direction. And maybe we won't have to use it. We'll see.
PRESIDENT TRUMP says the US is watching Iran closely:
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 23, 2026
"I said, if you hang those people, you're going to be hit harder than you've ever been hit. It will make what we did to your Iran nuclear look like peanuts."
"And they actually said they canceled it, they didn't postpone it,… pic.twitter.com/Lin6FQxoxh
The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump is pushing his aides to develop "decisive" military options against Iran. The Pentagon and White House have been working to create a list of military options for action against Iran – some of which are aimed at possibly toppling the regime.
Several reports confirmed that the Trump administration is sending the naval strike force to the region, which raised speculation about possible airstrikes against the regime. Estimates of casualties caused by the regime range from 2,000 to 20,000 people killed.
Footage shows a Basij member assaulting a young woman during the recent protests in Iran. pic.twitter.com/IiAN8Xsjuj
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) January 23, 2026
The Times reveals the awful truth: 16,500 protesters killed and 330,000 injured.Two weeks of protests in Iran have caused more civilian deaths than two years of war in Gaza. Yet the world looks the other war, pic.twitter.com/uqZy1SMriO
— David Vance (@DVATW) January 21, 2026
However, the Iranian government claims it has successfully squashed the protests. The country’s Prosecutor General announced on Wednesday that “sedition is over now.” However, there are indications that the conflict has not yet abated, according to NBC News.
The U.S. has dispatched to the Middle East a carrier strike group, as well as additional aircraft and land-based air defense systems, a U.S. official said last week.
Iran claims to have restored order following the nationwide demonstrations that began spreading late last year over the country's collapsing currency and spiraling prices.
Experts watching the country, however, say the eruption remains an existential crisis for the Islamic Republic, whose latest crackdown is the deadliest since its establishment following the 1979 revolution, a United Nations fact-finding mission said Friday.