Trump Tells Iranian Protesters ‘Help Is on Its Way’ as Regime Fears Defections

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged Iranians to keep protesting their theocratic, authoritarian government, vowing “help” was coming as the regime continued its brutal crackdown on the nationwide demonstrations.

Trump’s message came amid growing concerns from Iran that it could see defections among the security forces, which have been killing and arresting thousands of protesters to crush the biggest threat to the regime’s stability in years.

“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have canceled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA [Make Iran Great Again]!!!”

Trump did not elaborate on what support may be coming. When asked what he meant by “help is on its way,” Trump told reporters that they would have to figure it out.

However, Trump has said multiple times over the last two weeks that he will intervene against the Iranian regime if security forces continue killing protesters. Adding to threats of military action, Trump late on Monday announced that any country doing business with Iran will face a new tariff of 25 percent on its exports to the US.

According to reports, Trump was to meet with senior advisers on Tuesday to discuss options for Iran, including military strikes, using cyber weapons, widening sanctions, and providing online help to anti-government sources.

Iran has continued to face fierce demonstrations, which began on Dec. 28 over economic hardships but escalated into large-scale protests calling for the downfall of the country’s Islamist system.

The regime has responded with an increasingly violent crackdown on protests. An Iranian official told Reuters that about 2,000 people had been killed in the protests, marking the first time authorities have given an overall death toll from more than two weeks of unrest.

US-based rights group HRANA said that of the 2,003 people whose deaths it had confirmed, 1,850 were protesters. It added that 16,784 people had been detained, a significant increase from the figure of 10,721 it gave on Monday.

However, thousands more people are feared dead.

“Based on available data and cross-checking information obtained from reliable sources, including the Supreme National Security Council and the presidential office, the initial estimate by the Islamic Republic’s security institutions is that at least 12,000 people were killed in this nationwide killing,” reported Iran International, a Persian-language news outlet.

According to CBS News, the figure could be as high as 20,000.

With the regime imposing an internet blackout since Thursday, verification of such figures has been difficult.

Trump continued to urge Iranian protesters to “take over” institutions while speaking at an economic event in Detroit, Michigan on Tuesday.

“And by the way, to all Iranian patriots, keep protesting, take over your institutions, if possible, and save the name of the killers and the abusers that are abusing you; you’re being very badly abused if the numbers are right,” Trump said.

“They’ll pay a very big price, and I’ve canceled all meetings with the Iranian officials, until the senseless killing of protesters stops. And all I say to them is, help is on its way. You saw that,” he continued. “I put tariffs on anybody doing business with Iran just went into effect today. And I say, make Iran great again, you know, as a great country until these monsters came in and took it over.”

Iran has warned that any military action would be met with force in response.

“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories [Israel] as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf told a crowd in Tehran’s Enqelab Square on Monday, adding that Iranians were fighting a four-front war: “economic war, psychological warfare, military war against the US and Israel, and today a war against terrorism.”

Following Trump’s social media post the following day, Iranian security chief Ali Larijani said on X that the US president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were the “main killers” of the Iranian people.

Despite the protests, there have been few examples of fracture among the security forces and regime elites that could topple the clerical system, which has been in power since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. However, there are signs of Tehran fearing defections.

The Intelligence Organization of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an internationally designated terrorist group and a key force responsible for suppressing dissent, issued a statement on Friday castigating the protests as part of a “terrorist” plot orchestrated by the US and Israel to topple the regime. In a now-deleted section of the statement, the IRGC also warned that any “defiance, desertion, or disobedience” among the military would be met with “trial and decisive action.”

“The apparent removal of this language likely reflects concerns about triggering a panic, but it nevertheless exposes the depth of anxiety among regime officials,” wrote Janatan Sayeh, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank based in Washington, DC.

Meanwhile, the IRGC’s Intelligence Organization also said that it was “dealing with possible acts of abandonment,” similarly suggesting that some Iranian security forces may have already defected or that the regime is concerned about such a possibility.

A Kurdish human rights organization reported last week that the regime had arrested “dozens” of security officers in Kermanshah City who refused to fire on protesters.

“The regime may be framing protesters as ‘terrorists’ and linking them to the United States and Israel to increase security forces’ willingness to use lethal force against protesters and reduce the risk of defections,” the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote in a new analysis.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has reportedly ordered the IRGC to take control of the crackdown in part due to fears of defections by the police and regular armed forces.

“He [Khamenei] is in closer contact with the IRGC than with the army or the police, because he believes the risk of IRGC defections is almost non-existent, whereas others have defected before,” a senior Iranian official told The Telegraph. “He has placed his fate in the hands of the IRGC.”

The Institute for the Study of War noted that the regular Iranian military “is generally less ideological and more representative of the Iranian population than the IRGC, which increases the risk that [army] members could defect.”

Defections could tip the scales in favor of the protesters. But even if the regime succeeds in stamping out the unrest, some observers argue the Islamist theocracy has no long-term future in Iran.

“I assume that we are now witnessing the final days and weeks of this regime,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Tuesday, adding that if it had to maintain power through violence, “it is effectively at its end.”

Germany, along with Britain, France, and Italy, all summoned Iranian ambassadors in protest over the crackdown, decrying what British Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper called the “brutal killing” of protesters.

Meanwhile, the European Union has indicated it will impose harsher sanctions on Iran in response to the repression of anti-government demonstrations.

“The rising number of casualties in Iran is horrifying. I unequivocally condemn the excessive use of force and continued restriction of freedom,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen posted on X. “Further sanctions on those responsible for the repression will be swiftly proposed.”

China and Russia, meanwhile, have backed the Iranian regime, warning against foreign “interference” in what officials described as Iran’s internal affairs.

Amid the unrest, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Al Jazeera that he and US envoy Steve Witkoff have been in contact.

Witkoff met Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah and a prominent voice in the Iranian opposition, this past weekend, Axios reported.