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.”
He also 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.”
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
