President Trump gave Iran until Tuesday at 8 pm to make a deal or face devastating consequences, escalating the conflict with a promise to "blow everything up and take over the oil." The ultimatum came during a weekend that saw American special forces pull off one of the most harrowing rescue operations in recent military history.
During a phone call with Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst on Sunday morning, the president laid it out plainly. The Daily Mail reported that Trump told Yingst: "If they don't reach a deal, and soon, I'm considering blowing everything up and taking control of the oil."
The warning followed an early Easter Sunday post on Truth Social that left little room for diplomatic interpretation:
"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***in' Strait, you crazy b*****ds, or you'll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH!"
Iran's power plants are next on the target list if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. The narrow waterway, one of the most critical shipping routes on the planet, has been shut since the war broke out on February 28, with Iran vowing to block "enemy" ships from passing.
The diplomatic escalation arrived against the backdrop of a rescue mission that belongs in a movie script. An F-15E fighter jet was shot down over a remote area of Iran on Friday. The pilot ejected safely and was recovered by military helicopters the same day. The second crew member, a colonel whom Trump described as "highly respected," was not so fortunate.
Armed with only a handgun and injured from ejection, the colonel evaded Iranian forces for 36 hours through harsh mountain terrain, reaching elevations of around 7,000 feet. Reaper drones circled overhead, providing cover. The Iranian regime offered a $60,000 bounty for the pilot's "head," urging locals near the crash site to seize him.
The extraction involved hundreds of special forces personnel, several dozen warplanes and helicopters, and a firefight with Iranian troops on the ground. Two of the five rescue planes became stuck at a remote airfield inside Iran and were destroyed by special forces to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. An MH-6 Little Bird helicopter was also destroyed after sustaining damage.
The CIA played a critical role. According to Fox News, the agency launched a "deception campaign" inside Iran, spreading the word that US forces had already found and were moving the colonel. The disinformation confused Iranian forces long enough for the real operation to succeed.
Trump celebrated the outcome on Truth Social late Saturday night:
"This brave warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour."
Both crew members were recovered "without a SINGLE American killed, or even wounded," Trump said. He called it the first time in military memory that two US pilots had been rescued separately deep in enemy territory. Iranian media reported five people killed in strikes during the operation.
The Tuesday deadline carries weight because the last one did, too. Days earlier, US-Israeli air strikes destroyed the B1 bridge, Iran's tallest, which linked Tehran with the western city of Karaj. Eight people were killed. The 136-meter structure was hit in two waves of strikes on Thursday, with the second wave arriving while rescue forces were on the scene helping at least 95 injured, according to Iranian state media.
Trump had warned he would bomb Tehran "back to the Stone Age." The bridge strike signaled he was not bluffing. Now he is telling Iran that power plants are next.
White House communications director Steven Cheung said the president had been "working nonstop" through the holiday weekend. Trump was spotted heading back into the White House on Sunday after visiting Trump National Golf Club, his first public sighting in days.
There is a clarity to this approach that the foreign policy establishment has never been comfortable with. For decades, the preferred method of dealing with Iran involved carefully worded communiqués, backchannel negotiations, and the occasional symbolic gesture. What it never involved was results.
Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz because it believed it could. The regime has spent years testing how far it can push without triggering real consequences. Every unanswered provocation reinforced the lesson that Western powers would absorb the cost rather than escalate.
Trump is rewriting that calculation in real time. The bridge is rubble. The colonel is home. And Tuesday is coming.
The Iranian regime now faces a choice it has spent decades avoiding: negotiate from a position of weakness, or absorb strikes on infrastructure that keeps the lights on for 88 million people. The $60,000 bounty they placed on an American airman's head looks almost quaint next to what the US just demonstrated it can do inside their borders.
Iran wanted to test American resolve. They got their answer at 7,000 feet in the mountains, where one injured colonel with a handgun outlasted everything the regime could throw at him.