Donald Trump offered little in the way of an optimistic view of Iran’s future on Monday during a bilateral meeting with German Chanceller Friedrich Merz at the White House.
Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, the president took his first extended Q&A on the military campaign launched by the U.S. on Saturday morning.
Trump gave no indication of who the U.S. hoped would assume leadership of Iran’s government in the days to come, explaining that many potential candidates had been killed in the first round of strikes. He also admitted that his actions could result in a leader with even more fervent anti-U.S. sentiment coming to power.
“I guess the worst case is we do this and then somebody takes over who is as bad as the previous person,” Trump admitted. “That could happen.”
“Most of the people we had in mind [to lead Iran] are dead,” the president continued. “Pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.”
The U.S., along with Israel, began targeted strikes on Iranian targets early Saturday morning. Those strikes are now confirmed to have killed Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei.
In the days following the White House and GOP have faced questions about what this means for both the U.S. and Iran, including whether America is now involved in an extended war in the Middle East and who the Trump administration hopes will take over the Iranian government in the wake of a devastating campaign intended to decapitate the regime and its military.
Top Trump administration officials have offered differing explanations for the necessity of the attacks, which were reportedly authorized only a day after top U.S. negotiators met with Iranian diplomats in Geneva. Among the reasons for launching the strikes have been the supposed resumption of Iran’s nuclear weapons development, the imminent threat supposedly posed by its non-nuclear ballistic missile program, and the negotiators’ refusal to address non-nuclear weapons and support for terrorist groups like the Houthis in Geneva.
Trump offered yet another explanation on Monday: He believed that the Iranian’s planned to launch their own attack first. He gave no evidence for this.
“We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first,” said the president. “They were going to attack if we didn’t do it. They were going to attack first, I felt strongly about that.”
The answer came in response to a reporter’s question about the claim that Israeli officials had forced Trump’s hand by informing him of their own plans to launch strikes against Iran.
“We have great negotiators, great people, people who do this very successfully. And based on the way that the negotiations was going, I think that they were going to attack first. And I didn’t want that to happen. So if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand. But Israel was ready and we were ready,” said Trump.
This is a breaking news report. More to follow…
