President Donald Trump holds a Cabinet meeting, Wednesday, April 30, 2025, in the Cabinet Room. (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)
President Donald Trump said the United States had identified potential successors to Iran’s supreme leader before launching weekend airstrikes — and claimed those figures were killed in the opening wave of attacks that also left Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dead.
In a phone call Sunday night with ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl, the president described the military operation as a decisive success and suggested it had severely disrupted Iran’s leadership structure.
“Nobody else could have done this but me,” Trump told Karl, according to the correspondent’s on-air account.
Trump said U.S. intelligence had pinpointed several individuals within the Iranian government who could have stepped into power. “The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,” the president said, adding that the potential successors were “all dead.”
The remarks underscore the administration’s assertion that the strikes were not only tactically effective but strategically aimed at crippling the regime’s continuity of command. The operation, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, targeted senior figures within Iran’s military and political leadership.
Among those confirmed dead are Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to the supreme leader; Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; and former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. U.S. officials have described the strikes as precision-based and intelligence-driven.
Trump also told Karl that an individual within the Iranian government had reached out following the attacks to discuss possible negotiations.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you,” Trump said when asked who had made contact, describing the person only as “somebody who had survived” and “is no longer reporting to the Supreme Leader.”
Watch:
President Donald Trump revealed to Fox News that the U.S. and Israel killed 49 of Iran’s most senior leaders in the opening strike of Operation Epic Fury on Saturday morning.
Trump made the statement in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier on Monday, saying it was “amazing” that the U.S. had the information it had about the meeting of top Iranian leadership.
Trump told Baier that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was meeting with his inner circle for breakfast on the morning of the attack, thinking they were safe because it was in broad daylight.
“It was 49 leaders that were taken out. That was going to take four weeks, we thought, to get rid of the Iranian leadership. And it’s always, you know, if they hide, it’s a lot longer than four weeks. And they would have been hiding,” Trump told Baier. “We were shocked when we heard what was going on. We knew exactly what was happening and where.”
The claim comes as Iran has reportedly established a temporary governing council to manage the transition. Despite Trump’s suggestion of backchannel outreach, Iran’s National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani publicly rejected the prospect of talks, stating the government “will not negotiate with the United States.”
The president said the conflict could last “four weeks or so,” signaling that additional operations may be underway. He also acknowledged that three U.S. service members had been killed in the fighting. On Monday, U.S. Central Command confirmed a fourth servicemember was killed in action as part of Operation Epic Fury.
The strikes mark one of the most consequential U.S. military actions against Iran in decades and represent a significant escalation in long-standing tensions between Washington and Tehran.
