BREAKING: Trump claims that it’s not a war crime to slaughter Iranians and destroy their civilian infrastructure because “they’re animals.”

This is eliminationist language right out of the Rwandan genocide…

“Mr. President, how would it not be a war crime to strike Iran's bridges and power plants?” a reporter asked Trump.

The question was prompted by an Easter Truth Social post in which Trump wrote: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F*ckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

Trump responded to the reporter’s question about the deranged threat with a bald-faced lie—

“Because they killed 45,000 people in the last month,” he said. “More than that. They could be as much as 60.”

The Iranian government’s massacring of its own civilians was a horrific tragedy, but the estimates are nowhere near as high as 60,000. Iran itself has admitted to around 3,000 deaths and the US-based organisation Human Rights Activists News Agency says that it has verified 6,000 deaths with 17,000 more under investigation.

This is not us idly quibbling over numbers. Any killing of civilians is inexcusable, but Trump’s lies must be called out, especially when it comes to matters of war. The truth matters now more than ever.

More to the point, the Iranian government’s killing of protestors in no way justifies Trump’s decision to bomb civilian infrastructure. His rationale essentially boils down to “their government is killing them so I can kill them too.”

“They're animals,” Trump continued. “And we have to stop them, and we can't let them have a nuclear weapon. Very simple. They want a nuclear weapon. They've been trying for a long time.”

“I stopped them with the Obama-horrible Iran nuclear deal,” he added. “I stopped them in a lot of different ways.”

In reality, the Iranian government did not want a nuclear weapon before this war began. Ayatollah Khamenei, who Trump assassinated, had a fatwa banning nuclear weapons on Islamic religious grounds.

On top of that and despite what Trump claims, Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was a historic success. Iran was not on the path to obtaining nuclear weapons but Republicans insisted that they were because this was never about nuclear weapons, it has always been about destroying Iran so that Israel can continue its territorial expansion without worrying about its regional adversary.

As for the dehumanizing “animals” rhetoric, we would suggest that the only animal here is the demented pedophile who started a war of choice by bombing a school full of little girls and who’s now threatening to mass murder civilians.