President Donald Trump admitted on Sunday that the U.S. had a number of candidates in mind to take over Iran following the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but they were killed in the initial strikes on the country.
Trump made the revelation in a phone call to ABC News, admitting that “the attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates.”
Speaking to ABC’s Jonathan Karl on Sunday night, the president added, “It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.”
Karl, ABC News’ Chief Washington Correspondent, also said that Trump claimed someone within the Iranian government had reached out to him, but wouldn’t specify who beyond the fact it was someone who had survived the attacks on Iran and was “no longer reporting to the Supreme Leader.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
When asked by the New York Times on Sunday what he felt should happen next, Trump offered “several seemingly contradictory visions” of how a transfer of power might work, including a set of circumstances similar to that of Venezuela, where the top leader was removed but the rest of the government remained in place, provided they were willing to cooperate with the U.S.
“What we did in Venezuela, I think, is the perfect, the perfect scenario,” Trump told the Times. Venezuela is currently being led by Nicolás Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, following Maduro’s abduction and imprisonment in New York in January.
The president added that he hoped Iran’s military would hand their weapons over to the Iranian people. “They would really surrender to the people, if you think about it,” Trump reportedly said.
Trump also told the Times that he had “three very good choices” for who could lead the country, but declined to provide names. Iran’s top security official said earlier on Sunday that the country would be led by an interim committee until a successor for the supreme leader could be chosen.
The 86-year-old Ayatollah, who has ruled Iran since 1989, was killed by an Israeli strike on Saturday, alongside Iran’s defense minister and the commander of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
![Khamenei said the U.S. "entered the war in an effort to save that [Zionist] regime but achieved nothing.”](https://www.thedailybeast.com/resizer/v2/RVTXABI4NFETRBZMCNXUJ4TTKU.JPG?auth=5c5cca0314f658d56e674512872de2e7821b91e93c8435d3a039aa8dd9030f96&width=800&height=450)
In addition, more than 40 senior Iranian security and regime figures were killed in the joint American and Israeli strikes on the country over the weekend, according to one Israeli security official who spoke to Fox News.
In his Truth Social post confirming Khamenei’s death, which Trump described as “single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country,” the president said that, “Hopefully, the IRGC and Police will peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves.”
He also said that bombing would continue uninterrupted throughout the week, “or as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”
Iran responded to the attacks with retaliatory strikes on U.S. allies across the Middle East, including Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, all of which host U.S. military bases.
Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations had previously said in a letter dated Feb. 20 that “all U.S. military bases, facilities, and assets in the region would constitute legitimate targets if the United States follows through on its military threats and attacks Iran.”
