Trump Says ‘I Guess’ When Asked if Americans Should Fear Iranian Attacks: ‘Like I Said, Some People Will Die’

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

President Donald Trump acknowledged that Americans should fear Iranian reprisals in the U.S., claiming in an interview that “we expect some things.”

The president spoke with Eric Cortellessa of TIME for a wide-ranging profile of his ongoing U.S. military operation in Iran that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei over the weekend. Cortellessa depicted the moment after the Saturday strike that killed the Ayaltolla.

“I’ve killed all their leaders,” Trump said. “That room is gone.”

Iran soon retaliated with massive numbers of drone strikes on U.S. and Israeli targets, which have so far led to the deaths of at least six American servicemembers. Cortellessa asked the president in a phone call on Wednesday whether Americans should fear an expansion of strikes to within the United States.

“I guess,” he said. “But I think they’re worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time. We plan for it. But yeah, you know, we expect some things. Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.”

The president made similar comments over the course of the week. In his six-minute video message on Sunday– the first time Trump spoke to the nation since the strikes– he claimed that more Americans would likely die due to the conflict.

“We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude to the families of the fallen,” the president said in the video. “And sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is, likely be more.”

In the TIME piece, Trump also doubled down on two other points of contention about his military campaign– his timeline for the operation and his possible involvement in the future leadership of Iran.

“I have no time limits on anything,” said Trump. “I want to get it done.”

The president’s words echoed comments made at Thursday breifing by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who claimed the U.S timeline for the operation was “ours alone to control.”

Trump told Cortellessa that he wanted to be involved in choosing the new leader of Iran, a sentiment he also expressed to Axios on Thursday.

“One of the things I’m going to be asking for is the ability to work with them on choosing a new leader,” he said to TIME. “I’m not going through this to end up with another Khamenei. I want to be involved in the selection. They can select, but we have to make sure it’s somebody that’s reasonable to the United States.”

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