President Donald Trump speaks next to a container of milk during a signing ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Jan. 14, 2026. Trump signed a bill that allows schools to serve whole milk and milk with 2 percent fat. PHOTO: Pool/ABACA / Shutterstock Editorial / Profimedia
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he has been told that killings in Iran's crackdown on protests that have escalated nationwide are declining and that he believes there are currently no plans for large-scale executions, even as tensions between Tehran and Washington remain high, Reuters, CNN and Sky News reported.
“We have been informed quite categorically – but we will find out what that means – that the executions in Iran are stopping and have stopped, and that there is no plan for executions. I have been told this from a reliable source and I hope that is true,” the US leader said. The information “just” reached him, the president said.
Asked by reporters in the Oval Office of the White House who told him that the killings in Iran had stopped, Trump described those people as “very important sources on the other side.”
However, the US president did not rule out possible US military action, saying that “we will follow the progress of the process”, before noting that the administration in Washington had received a “very good statement” from Iran.
“We'll monitor the situation and see how it develops, but we've had a very good statement from people who are aware of what's going on,” he said.
Trump's remarks appear to signal a cautious easing of fears that the crisis in Iran risks degenerating into a wider regional confrontation and the need for US military intervention.
Trump had threatened “very tough measures” against Iran
In an interview with CBS News on Monday, Trump warned that the United States would take “very tough measures” if Iranian authorities go ahead with plans to execute protesters they detained during the widespread unrest.
The US-based human rights group HRANA said it had verified the deaths of 2,403 protesters and 147 government-affiliated people so far, far exceeding the death toll from previous waves of protests repressed by Iranian authorities in 2022 and 2009.
The riots on such a scale have caught the authorities by surprise at a vulnerable time, but it does not appear that Tehran's government is facing an imminent collapse and its security apparatus is still in control, a Western official said, quoted by Reuters.
The statements of the American president on Wednesday evening came in the context in which Trump analyzed a series of possible actions against Iran, in response to the bloody repression of anti-government protests, including the possibility of carrying out military attacks.
According to several sources close to the White House, cited by The Washington Post, the Trump administration is divided on whether an attack on military or government facilities in Iran is the best option, since a military attack, similar to the bombing of nuclear facilities in June, involves a high risk of miscalculation or erroneous information by the intelligence services.
