US President Donald Trump commented on Sunday on the elimination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“I got him before he got me. They tried twice. Well, I got him first," Trump told ABC News in an interview, in reference to a number of reported attempts by Iranian intelligence services to assassinate him.
Asked about who he had in mind now to lead Iran after Khamenei, Trump said that all his choices had been already been eliminated.
“The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates. It's not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead," he told ABC News.
In an earlier interview with The New York Times, Trump outlined what he described as “three very good choices" for leadership in Iran but declined to name them. He offered several possible visions for how power might be transferred in Tehran, without committing to a single course of action.
Among the options he referenced was an outcome similar to what he said he had engineered in Venezuela, in which only former President Nicolas Maduro was removed during an American military strike while much of the existing government structure remained in place but became more willing to work pragmatically with the United States.
In that interview, Trump also said that the United States is prepared to continue its military assault on Iran for “four to five weeks" if necessary.