Pro-Trump GOP Senator Splits With President on Iran, Warns Him Not to Target Infrastructure: I ‘Pray’ His Threats Are ‘Just Bluster’

Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) split with President Donald Trump over his threats to bomb civilian infrastructure and bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age” on Monday.

“I hope and pray that President Trump is just using this as bluster,” said Johnson during a discussion about Trump’s threats on the John Solomon Reports podcast. “I do not want to see us start blowing up civilian infrastructure.”

The senator argued, “We are not at war with the Iranian people. We are trying to liberate them,” adding, “We’re at war with about a million of the elites, the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps], the other security forces and the people who are brutally ruling that country… They’re not going to give it up easy. I warned [when] the first bombs were flying that this is not going to be an easy task.”

Johnson’s remarks came after the president made several threats to destroy Iran’s civilian infrastructure – an act that would be considered a war crime.

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” wrote Trump in an Easter social media post on Sunday. “Open the F*ckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

On Tuesday morning, Trump doubled down on his threat.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” he threatened. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

Retired U.S. Army General and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Wesley Clark, warned last month that any attacks on civilian infrastructure to “put pressure on the government by harming the civilian population” would be a “war crime.”

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