Trump Tells Jonathan Karl He Had Successors in Mind After Strikes on Iran — But They Were All Killed

President Donald Trump said the U.S. had identified potential successors to Iran’s supreme leader before launching strikes, but claimed they were “all dead” after the opening wave of attacks that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The president offered the details during a call with ABC News’s chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl on Sunday night, also claiming that an Iranian government insider had reached out to him to negotiate.

Appearing on ABC News, Karl relayed what the president told him during the interview:

First, striking how stunningly successful the president believes this military operation has been. He actually told me ‘nobody else could have done this but me.’ As for who’s going to lead Iran, he said that they had identified some possible candidates within the structure of the Iranian government. But as you said, they’re all dead. He said ‘the attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates.’

He followed:

He told me that somebody within the Iranian government has reached out to him. I asked him who it was. He said, ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you’ but it was, you know, somebody who had survived. And somebody, he added, is no longer reporting to the Supreme Leader.

Among those confirmed dead are Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser; General Mohammad Pakpour, head of the Revolutionary Guards; and former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iran has reportedly installed a temporary council to govern during the transition, and despite Trump’s claims, the regime’s National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani said the government “will not negotiate with the United States.”

Trump said the conflict could last “four weeks or so” and acknowledged three U.S. service members had been killed.

Watch above via ABC News.

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