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President Donald Trump said in an interview on Friday that he is not optimistic that the government in Tehran is near collapse, but vowed that it will happen at some point.
“I really think that’s a big hurdle to climb for people that don’t have weapons,” he told Brian Kilmeade, the Fox News host. “I think it’s a very big hurdle. It’ll happen but…maybe not immediately.”
Trump has made various statements about his war goals for Iran, and the general theme before the war was that he could not allow Tehran to develop a nuclear weapon. Shortly after the war started, he declared that it was essential that he play a central role in the country’s process of selecting a new leader after the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Iranian leadership selected Mojtaba Khamenei, the adult son of the former supreme leader to take control of the country. By his recent statement, Mojtaba has shown little interest in ending the war that Israel and the United States launched against his nation. In his first public message promised revenge for the “blood of your martyrs.”
Trump said in the interview that Iranian security forces have been in the streets carrying machine guns, “machine-gunning people down if they want to protest. That’s a pretty big hurdle to climb for people that don’t have weapons.”
Earlier this year, Trump raised concerns about the massive protest that broke out in the country and assured them that “help is on the way.”
Trump has varied on what his war goals are for Iran and said he will not stop the fight until Tehran agrees to an “unconditional surrender.” He has also said that he must play a central role in the country’s selection process for a new leader. (See “TRUMP APPLAUDED BY FAR-RIGHT INFLUENCERS AND POLITICIANS AFTER ORDERING ILLEGAL WAR AGAINST IRAN” (10 Mar 2026).
Trump said before the attack on 28 February that the best outcome for Iran would be regime change, but demurred when asked about who he believed should run the country.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that Tehran has been seeking a deal to end the war, but he has refused. Tehran has said it has no interest in negotiations and has listed three demands: recognition of Iran’s sovereignty, reparations for damage from the war, and guarantees that future military aggression will not occur.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has noted that the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran twice in the middle of their most recent negotiations, so there was no way they would be sucked up into a phony negotiation scheme again.
Badr Albusaidi, Oman’s foreign minister who played a role in nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran, admitted that he was “dismayed” that the U.S. attacked, even as some progress was made during these talks.
“Active and serious negotiations have yet again been undermined,” he said.
Brett Bruen, a former State Department official who served on the National Security Council while Barack Obama was in office, told the paper that the talks with Iran appeared to be “a ruse.”
“This may work in real estate where one side wants to sell and another wants to buy,” Bruen said. But he said in diplomatic negotiations, such efforts would make the other party reluctant to “make real concessions.”
TREND FORECAST: Iranian leadership knows that the ultimate goal is regime change to put in a puppet regime for the U.S. and Israel, which would be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s crowning achievement – even above his demonic genocide in Gaza and attempt to ethnically cleanse the West Bank – with the full support of the Trump regime.
Trump is no student of history, or he would understand that bombing campaigns could not achieve victories in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, and will certainly not work inside Iran.
Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, the U.S. commander in Europe, addressed Congress last week and said, “Anytime you attack a civilian population, you usually end up finding that it just hardens their resolve. We take this all the way back to the London Blitz in World War II. The Brits just had a stiff upper lip and kept on fighting, and I think that’s what we’ve seen in Ukraine, as well.”
The same could be said for Iranians, who understand more clearly that Washington and Israel couldn’t care less about them with each 500-pound bomb dropped on them.