Speaking on Fox News Radio's The Brian Kilmeade Show, Trump said security forces loyal to the Islamic Republic routinely shoot demonstrators in the streets, making it difficult for unarmed civilians to challenge the regime despite growing pressure from the ongoing conflict.
“They literally have people in the streets with machine guns, machine-gunning people down if they want to protest,” Trump said, referring to Iran’s security forces. “That’s a pretty big hurdle to climb for people that don’t have weapons.”
Trump said that while change inside Iran will eventually happen, it is unlikely to occur quickly under such conditions.
“It’ll happen,” he said, “but it probably will be — maybe not immediately.”