President Donald Trump said Saturday night he knows “exactly who” could replace Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei following his elimination in a joint U.S.-Israeli strike, asserting the removal of Tehran’s longtime ruler has materially shifted the diplomatic landscape.
Asked by CBS News whether he had a successor in mind, Trump responded that there were “some good candidates,” adding, “I know exactly who they are, but I can’t tell you.”
The president further indicated that he is aware of who is currently exercising decision-making authority inside Iran in the aftermath of Khamenei’s death.
Turning to the prospects for diplomacy, Trump argued that the sustained military pressure on the regime has made negotiations more attainable than before.
“It’s much easier now than it was a day ago, obviously, because they are getting beat up badly,” he said, suggesting the strikes had altered Tehran’s strategic calculus.
Hours earlier, Trump had publicly confirmed Khamenei’s elimination after the opening phase of what has become the largest joint U.S.-Israel military operation to date.
“He was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Sources told the outlet that roughly 40 senior Iranian officials were killed in the initial assault alongside Khamenei.
In a separate video posted to Truth Social at approximately 2:30 a.m. Saturday, announcing the commencement of strikes, Trump framed the operation as both defensive and transformative, urging the Iranian people to “take over your government” and describing the moment as potentially their “only chance” to reclaim their country.
As Iranian forces responded with missile launches, Trump said the retaliation had unfolded largely within expected parameters.
“It’s what we expected,” he said of Iran’s ballistic missile response, noting that the scale of the attacks thus far has been lower than U.S. and Israeli officials had anticipated. “We thought it’d be double. Thus far, it’s been less than we thought.”
U.S. Central Command has reported no American deaths or injuries since operations began in the early hours of Saturday. In Israel, one person was killed and dozens injured in retaliatory strikes.
Iran also launched attacks targeting U.S. partners in the Gulf region, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, though early assessments indicated limited physical damage and no confirmed mass casualties.
While declining to formally characterize the campaign as a “war,” Trump emphasized that the objective remains eliminating threats to the United States and its allies.
Both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have linked the military campaign to broader regime-change dynamics, arguing that the decapitation of Iran’s leadership could create conditions for internal political transformation.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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