President Donald Trump on Tuesday walked back his apparent support for regime change in Iran.
“No, I don’t want it,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday when asked if he wants to see new leadership in the country. “I’d like to see everything calm down as quickly as possible. Regime change takes chaos. And ideally, we don’t want to see so much chaos.”
“You know, the Iranians are very good traders, very good business people, and they’ve got a lot of oil. They should be fine. They should be able to rebuild and do a good job,” he continued.
His comments to reporters mark a change in attitude since the weekend.
“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!” Trump posted on Truth Social over the weekend.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that a new government in Iran might come about from local uprising, as opposed to requiring American intervention.
“If the Iranian regime refuses to come to a peaceful, diplomatic solution, which the president is still interested and engaging in by the way, why shouldn’t the Iranian people take away the power of this incredibly violent regime that has been suppressing them for decades?” she told Fox and Friends.
Late Monday afternoon, after both the Truth Social post and Leavitt’s comments on Fox, Trump announced that Iran and Israel had come to a ceasefire agreement. The detente followed a day of conflict: Iran shot missiles into Qatar after U.S. attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities.
The New York Times, citing Iranian officials, reported that Iran “coordinated the attacks on the American air base in Qatar with Qatari officials and gave advanced notice that attacks were coming to minimize casualties.”
Trump subsequently said that Iran had “gotten it all out of their ‘system’” after the retaliatory strike, a few hours before announcing a ceasefire had been reached.
That ceasefire appeared shaky Tuesday morning after an early-morning barrage of missiles from Iran, though it has tentatively held.
Late Monday night, after the deal had been announced, Israel struck Iran in what seemed to be a final round of retaliatory strikes. Iran promised to stop its own attacks at 4 a.m. local time, but seemingly launched another series of missiles at Israel after that deadline expired — though it denied doing so, according to the Associated Press.
Trump was furious, telling reporters Tuesday morning: “We have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”
The president even directed criticism to Israel specifically. “I’m not happy with Israel. You know, when I say, ‘Ok, you have 12 hours,’ you don’t go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them. So I’m not happy with Israel,” he said, adding, “I’m not happy with Iran either, but I’m really unhappy if Israel’s going out this morning.”
He also posted further rebukes on Truth Social.
“ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran,” read one post.
“ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW!,” read another.
Both sides have denied violating the ceasefire, and the strikes have tentatively paused in the hours since.
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Nuha Dolby is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.