Trump: 'Attack so successful,' it botched the objective.

[bigtree]

Jonathan Karl @jonkarl
Pres Trump told me tonight the US had identified possible candidates to take over Iran, but they were killed in the initial attack.

"The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates," Trump told me. "It's not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead."

9:40 PM · Mar 1, 2026

...this is from an interview Jonathan Karl (ABC News) conducted with Trump tonight.

watch:

king of Scottsdale @blackgordongeck 4m
So you took out the leader to handpick a new regime, but you actually killed the regime you picked?

Failed operation. Failed presidency.


Politics Sloth (#1 reply guy) @SockDemFan 12m
“The attack went so well that it ended the only plans we had for regime change”

There is no backup plan…

Alexander Hamilton's Tears @Hamiltonstears
To review the bidding, Trump still has not articulated any plan for how he will accomplish regime change in Iran, but the inklings of the plan he sort of had were to somehow elevate (via airstrikes?) one of a few selected Iranian leaders (but not others) except they were all killed in the strike that killed Iran's leader.

Arthurz @ArthurzKV
So Trump had candidates for Iran's next leader but they all got killed in the strike—is this admitting the regime-change operation was improvised or just world-class timing?