Trump’s call to evacuate Tehran is ‘extremely troubling: Duss

Matthew Duss, the executive vice president of the Washington, DC-based Center for International Policy think tank, said that Trump’s warning that Tehran’s entire population should evacuate the city was “frankly terrifying”.

“This is a metropolitan area of over 15 million people. Evacuating a city of that size is impossible, even before you consider the fact that people don’t have access to gasoline. They would have to be fleeing on foot,” Duss told Al Jazeera.

“But, unfortunately, it’s hard to know how seriously to take what Donald Trump says… But still, this kind of language from a president of the United States is extremely troubling. We should all be concerned,” he said.

Trump had earlier written in a post on his Truth Social platform: “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”

Tensions have escalated since Friday, when Israel launched coordinated airstrikes and drone attacks on multiple sites across Iran, including military and nuclear facilities, prompting Tehran to launch retaliatory strikes.