President Trump said on Sunday that he was open to speaking to Iran’s new leadership and that they want to do so on the second day of U.S. and Israeli attacks on the country, even as Iran unleashed retaliatory strikes against Israel and other countries in the region that included American military bases.
“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with The Atlantic from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. “They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long.”
Mr. Trump did not specify whom those talks would be with. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in joint U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran on Saturday.
A senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the administration’s next steps in the military conflict, confirmed Mr. Trump’s willingness to talk to the Iranians. The official said Iran had indicated that it was willing to talk with Mr. Trump but declined to provide details about the outreach and added that the military assault against Iran would continue unabated.
In the absence of clear leadership, Iran’s top national security official, Ali Larijani, announced that an interim committee would run the country. He committed to hitting back against Israel and American targets “with a force they have never experienced before.”
President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran said on Sunday that the interim leadership council had begun its work to avenge the death of the ayatollah. “The United States and Israel should know that nothing will come of this except their own downfall,” Mr. Pezeshkian said in a recorded video statement broadcast on state television.
Mr. Trump was noncommittal to The Atlantic on whether he would prolong the bombing campaign against Iran if it was necessary to support the Iranian people overthrowing their government. “I have to look at the situation at the time it happens,” Mr. Trump said.
But he also seemed pleased with the operation thus far. He noted celebrations on the streets of Iran, as well as among Iranian Americans in Los Angeles.
“The people over there are shouting in the streets with happiness, but at the same time, there are a lot of bombs coming down,” Mr. Trump said.
Besides some conversations with individual reporters, Mr. Trump has kept a low profile since the start of the attack against Iran, with his most public comments being an eight-minute video posted on social media on Saturday, which was edited and not broadcast live. On Sunday, Mr. Trump had still not made a public appearance or emerged from his private club. He had no events on his public schedule besides his return to Washington later in the day
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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