‘You’re Fired’: Iran’s sardonic rejoinder to Trump’s threat of obliteration
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In a sharply worded escalation marked as much by symbolism as by strategic signalling, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) released a video message directed at Donald Trump, invoking his famous catchphrase from the television programme The Apprentice, while tensions deepened over the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
The video, circulated on the social media platform X, featured an IRGC spokesperson delivering the taunt in English, declaring, “Hey, Trump, you’re fired,” and adding, with deliberate theatricality, that the former US president would be familiar with the phrase, before concluding with a curt expression of thanks for his attention. The phrasing, though brief, carried a calculated rhetorical sting.
The message followed a strongly worded post by Trump on Truth Social, in which he reportedly issued Tehran a 48-hour ultimatum to reopen the strait, warning that failure to comply would prompt the United States to “hit and obliterate” Iran’s power plants.
The statement, couched in uncompromising language, introduced an overt threat against Iranian energy infrastructure, thereby intensifying fears of a broader regional confrontation that could disrupt global energy markets.
Iranian officials responded by signalling reciprocal escalation, asserting that any attack on their energy facilities would provoke a proportionate response, while the IRGC indicated that the strait itself could be closed if Iranian power plants were targeted, a move that would carry far-reaching economic implications given the chokepoint’s centrality to global oil shipments.
Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf warned on X that regional “energy infrastructure and oil facilities” could face destruction in an irreversible manner should hostilities escalate, a statement interpreted by analysts as a signal that Tehran views energy networks across the Gulf as potential leverage in the event of conflict.
The IRGC’s statement was issued through the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, the command responsible for coordinating Iran’s air-defence operations.