Donald Trump said on Sunday that Iran’s political leadership have agreed to talks, a day after the US and Israel began to target the country’s military and political infrastructure, killing the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several top officials.
“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them,” Trump told a reporter for the Atlantic magazine on Sunday. “They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long.”
The comments were some of the first from the president since he announced on Truth Social in the early morning hours on Saturday that the US had begun “major combat operations in Iran”.
Trump did not disclose whether any conversation would take place Sunday or next week, telling the Atlantic’s Michael Scherer: “I can’t tell you that” and noting that some of the Iranian officials who had been involved in discussions before the strikes had been killed.
“Most of those people are gone. Some of the people we were dealing with are gone, because that was a big – that was a big hit,” he said. “They should have done it sooner … they could have made a deal. They should’ve done it sooner. They played too cute.”
Decisive strikes on Iran’s theocratic leadership and military, he implied, were entirely justified. “People have wanted to do it for 47 years. They’ve killed people for 47 years, and now it’s reversed on them.”
Trump issued a new video address on his Truth Social platform later on Sunday, vowing to avenge American deaths and accusing the Iranian regime of “waging war against civilization itself”.
“An Iranian regime armed with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons would be a dire threat to every American,” he said. “We cannot allow a nation that raises terrorist armies to possess such weapons that would allow them to extort the world to their evil will. Not going to happen”.
Trump said Iran’s “entire military command is gone” and “many of them want to surrender. They want immunity. They’re calling by the thousands”.
He also addressed the deaths of three US service members during the action, saying “we grieve for the true American patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, even as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives” and called for prayers for “the full recovery” of five that were wounded.
“Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends,” he warned. “That’s the way it is likely to be more. But we’ll do everything possible where that won’t be the case.”
Earlier, he told Fox News’ White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich on Sunday that 48 leaders have been killed in the strikes and told CNBC that US military operations in Iran are “ahead of schedule”.
“It’s moving along. It’s moving along rapidly. This has been this way for 47 years,” he was quoted as saying in an interview with a Fox News reporter. “It’s moving along rapidly. Nobody can believe the success we’re having, 48 leaders are gone in one shot. And it’s moving along rapidly.”
Trump also spoke by phone to Nikki Schwab, a former contributor to the New York Post’s Page Six gossip column who is now at the Daily Mail, telling her that the military campaign in Iran is projected to be “a four-week process”.
In a fourth phone interview on Sunday, after three US service member deaths and five casualties were announced, Trump told NBC News: “We have three, but we expect casualties, but in the end it’s going to be a great deal for the world.”
In that call, Trump also used one of his favorite claims, saying that the US military operation was “ahead of schedule”, and added: “When we get 48 leaders, that’s a big event.”
Asked what he hoped the outcome of the American military operation in Iran, he said: “There are many outcomes that are good. Number one is decapitating them, getting rid of their whole group of killers and thugs. And there are many, many outcomes. We could do the short version or the longer version.”
When asked if strikes on Iran would be suspended amid negotiations that he earlier said had been agreed, the president said, “I don’t know,” before adding that he would consider a pause “if they can satisfy us” but that “they haven’t been able to.”
The brief interviews on Sunday came after the president told the Washington Post soon after the strikes: “All I want is freedom for the people. I want a safe nation, and that’s what we’re going to have.”
Trump was noncommittal in his latest comments to the Atlantic about whether the US would prolong a US bombing campaign to support a popular uprising.
“I have to look at the situation at the time it happens,” he said. “You can’t give an answer to that question.” He reportedly expressed confidence in a successful public uprising, noting celebrations in Iran and and among Iranian expats in the US.
But he cautioned: “Knowing it’s very dangerous, knowing I’ve told everybody to stay in place – I think it’s a very dangerous place right now. The people over there are shouting in the streets with happiness, but at the same time, there are a lot of bombs coming down.”
Reuters contributed reporting
