President Donald Trump said Monday that Iranians want to hear the United States bombing Iran because "they want to be free."
During the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, PBS News' @ElizLanders asked how bombing Iran is helping the Iranian people.
"The Iranian people, when they don't hear bombs go off, they're upset," he responded. "They want to hear bombs because they want to be free."
He added that Iranians don't have any weapons and are afraid of being "immediately shot" if they protest against the regime.
"The Iranian people will fight back as soon as they know they're not going to be shot and as soon as they can get weapons," he said.
The president also called PBS "a radical left group of lunatics" while deeming Landers' question "very fair."
Trump's comments come one day after he threatened, in an expletive-laden social media post, to destroy Iranian infrastructure if the regime didn't open the Strait of Hormuz, an important waterway for shipping and where one-fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas passes through.
"Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran," the president wrote in a social media post on Easter Sunday. "There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah."
Separately, Landers asked the president about why he used such vulgar language in his Easter post.
"Only to make my point," he said. "I think you've heard it before."