'Inappropriate to say': Trump may still be considering CIA-led uprising in Iran

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said it "wouldn't be appropriate to say" if he would greenlight the CIA arming Iranians to encourage a violent uprising, a day after he asked on his TruthSocial account, "When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?" Trump was taking unscheduled questions in the Oval Office, after the US unleashed a barrage of strikes on Iran's southern coast on Tuesday, killing 18 people, including two children at a wedding. "Will you send the CIA in to arm Iranians?" a reporter asked the president. "I'd love to tell you that, but it wouldn't be appropriate to say," Trump responded. "But I mean, I understand their plight. They're being shot... They have close to 65,000 protesters killed." It remains unclear where that figure is sourced, given Trump has previously floated figures between 25,000 and 80,000 during the anti-government protests in Iran early this year. Iran's own figure is about 3,800 killed. Read more: 'Inappropriate to say': Trump may still be considering CIA-led uprising in Iran An injured victim lies in a hospital bed, following a US attack on a wedding, near Sirik, a coastal area on the Strait of Hormuz, in Hormozgan province, Iran, on 2 September 2026 (Razieh Poudat/ISNA/via West Asia News Agency via Reuters)