President Trump dropped the hammer on Tehran Thursday, warning Iran would be hit "very hard" if the regime is behind the suspected hijacking of a FlyDubai plane bound for Israel, a mid-air bloodbath that left a captain stabbed in his own cockpit and 170 passengers staring down death at 35,000 feet.
"Oh, they'll be hit very hard. Don't worry," Trump told reporters when asked if the U.S. would retaliate against Iran for the Wednesday nightmare aboard Flight FZ1073.
When a reporter pressed, "By the U.S.?" the president didn't blink. "You just ask them," he shot back. "They know what happens."
"The Answer Is Yes"
The chilling threat came after Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Trump whether he had been briefed on any potential link between the suspect and the Iranian regime. The president's answer was the kind of blunt, four-word gut-punch that has defined his second term.
"I would say the answer, based on what I'm hearing is yes, but we're working on it right now," Trump said.
The investigation is still unfolding, but the picture is already ugly enough. The FlyDubai Boeing 737 left the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday morning, bound for Tel Aviv. Two and a half hours in, the plane plunged more than 17,000 feet. The crew flipped the transponder to code 7500, the international hijack signal. And then came the detail that stopped the world: one pilot allegedly stabbing the other inside the locked cockpit before passengers and two off-duty reserve pilots stormed the door, overpowered the attacker, and landed the jet in Saudi Arabia.
All 170-plus souls walked off that plane alive in Tabuk. The captain, Indian national Smit Machchhar, is recovering in an Abu Dhabi hospital after a video call with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that has gripped a nation.
"We Don't Know Who the Hell to Deal With"
Speaking later at a Peterbilt factory in Denton, Texas, Trump pivoted from the FlyDubai probe to the broader war with Iran, and the picture he painted was one of a regime on its knees.
"For the most part, their leaders are gone," Trump said of Iran's ruling clique, hollowed out by months of U.S. strikes under Operation Epic Fury. "That was one of our problems. We don't know who the hell to deal with, to be honest."
"We're trying to be nice to the current person, but we've got to deal with somebody at some point. So we're doing very well," he added, in a remark that was part olive branch, part shrug.
Trump predicted a quick end to the conflict, forecasting victory "right after the election, but maybe before the election." Then came the kill count, delivered like a boxer's tally.
"Their currency is valueless. They have no money. They have no Navy, all 159 ships are lying beautifully at the bottom of the sea," he said. "They have some missiles, but we can handle it. Very few are left, and their manufacturing capacity is dead."
Two Crises, One Message
The twin storylines, a suspected Iranian hand in a cockpit attack on a plane heading for Israel, and a president openly musing about finishing off the regime in Tehran, are now racing toward each other on a collision course.
If the FlyDubai probe confirms an Iranian link, the "very hard" hit Trump promised Thursday may not stay rhetorical for long. And with the midterm elections looming, a president who has already sent Iran's fleet to the bottom of the sea is not likely to flinch at the next step.
The co-pilot, whose identity has not been officially confirmed, remains in custody in Saudi Arabia. FlyDubai has yet to release a full statement on the alleged attack.
But the message from the White House was already loud and clear: if Tehran's fingerprints are on that cockpit, the answer won't be a press release. It will be a hammer.
