Trump is pledging to ‘rescue’ protesters in Iran. He has a selective view of the sanctity of protests.

President Donald Trump declared earlier this month that the attacks on Venezuela were related to drugs, gangs invading the United States, and law enforcement, namely the arrest of impeached leader Nicolás Maduro. But lately it seems obvious Preoccupied with the country’s oil wealth.

And the American people seem to realize this. A. CBS News poll Last week showed that many Americans think the administration’s goals in Venezuela are oil-related (59% said the goals are “very much” related to oil access) or expanding U.S. power (51%); More than drugs (38%), infestation by gangs and terrorists (37%), or law enforcement (31%).

This is quite impressive. IT it took years the adoption of the idea that the George W. Bush administration invaded Iraq under false pretenses (of weapons of mass destruction); When it comes to Venezuela, Americans are already largely there.

Now, could a similar foreign action occur a second time, this time in Iran, in early 2026?

Trump has repeatedly intervened militarily in recent days to, in his words, “rescue” Iranian protesters who have been targeted and killed by the regime.

But Trump has a highly selective view of the sanctity of protests and free speech in his own country, as last week in Minneapolis showed.

Trump, who slammed Iran’s nuclear program last year, has exaggerated protests there over the past 10 days and promised to defend protesters if necessary.

He said on January 2 that if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters as is customary, the United States will will come to save them.”

“We are locked, loaded and ready to go,” he added on social media.

Trump repeated this to Fox News’ Sean Hannity last week, saying: “I told them if they do anything bad to these people, we’re going to hit them hard.”

Protest The death toll exceeded 500, according to a US-based human rights group. And Trump said late Sunday night on Air Force One that his administration was investigating the causes of death and would “make a decision” on how to proceed.

But the president’s record on the impunity of protests and freedom of expression seems inconsistent and depends mostly on whether protesters accept his message.

Trump and his administration have attempted to portray the woman killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis last week as a dangerous provocateur engaged in “domestic terrorism.” lack of evidence Renee said Nicole Good deliberately targeted the agent with her car. CNN was unable to determine whether Good was involved in a network of activists trying to intervene as immigration raids continued.

For months, social media featured widely shared videos showing federal agents becoming aggressive not only against their targets, but also against them. with seemingly peaceful protestersAs CNN reported last month. We have also seen scenes of increased protests in Minneapolis in recent days.

The New York Times asked Trump about aggressive tactics used against protesters. an interview Last week, he seemed largely unbothered; He was constantly dodging the question.

“I think ICE is treated very badly,” he responded.

It’s a dynamic the president is familiar with.

When millions of people protested against him at “No Kings” rallies across the country in October, Trump and prominent Republicans repeatedly and repeatedly protested against him. baselessly ridicule those involved as antifa, terrorist sympathizers, and even terrorists themselves. Some even predicted serious unrest, even though previous “No to Kings” protests had involved little violence.

And of course, the recent protests were almost entirely peaceful.

A month ago Trump flew Federal crackdown on leftist groupsbaselessly accusing them of having something to do with Charlie Kirk’s assassination. (This is despite federal law enforcement saying the suspect, Tyler Robinson, acted alone.)

Trump and some senior administration officials at the time had repeatedly expressed the need for a possible intervention. Reduce free speech protections.

Again this year, Trump exaggerated violence at anti-ICE protests and other contexts to justify domestic troop deployments. Judges, including those appointed by Republicans He has repeatedly denied these allegations.

And earlier this year, he called some protests “illegal” and targeted legal immigrants who expressed pro-Palestinian views for deportation.

Later, Trump also said: Criticizing judges should be illegal (despite his own history of regularly criticizing judges). He advocated criminalizing flag burning and even suggested NFL players not taking part in the national anthem.shouldn’t be in the country.” He tagged protests he didn’t like as “uprising”.

Trump’s former defense secretary said: He defended the shooting of protesters in the legs during his first term. And around the same time, as racial justice protesters took to the streets across the country in 2020, Trump introduced a video of a supporter saying: “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”

Finally, there are some older comments that are particularly relevant today.

While Trump establishes himself as a potential savior for protesters in Iran, he repeatedly speaks as if repression is something only powerful countries do to their citizens.

Perhaps the most famous example was when Trump was asked in 2017 about Russian President Vladimir Putin killing his enemies. (“Do you think our country is this innocent?“said Trump.)

But even more striking were Trump’s comments about China’s treatment of Tiananmen Square demonstrators in 1990, long before he ran for president.

“When students flocked to Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost ruined it,” Trump said. He told Playboy at that time. “They were brutal then, they were terrible, but they suppressed it with their power. That shows you the power of force. Our country is perceived as weak now.”

In the same interview, Trump talked about “demonstrations and picketing” in the Soviet Union and said then-President Mikhail Gorbachev “wasn’t a firm enough hand.”

When the comments resurfaced during his 2016 campaign, Trump claimed he was not defending China’s crackdown on Tiananmen Square. But that’s not the only evidence that he often avoids considering these events from a consistent, pro-civil liberties perspective. His perspective is often about power and whether he likes what the protesters are saying.

Which makes it a little hard to believe that his motivation in Iran is exactly what he says it is.

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