President Donald Trump on June 19 responded to a report from the Wall Street Journal a day earlier that claimed he had privately approved a U.S. attack plan for Iran but withheld the final order to do so.
Since the conflict between Iran and Israel erupted last week, there have been reports claiming that Trump was considering striking Iran directly. Meanwhile, reporters have asked the president several times in media events whether the United States would get involved.
“I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” Trump told reporters on June 18 at the White House. “I can tell you this, that Iran’s got a lot of trouble. And they want to negotiate. And I say, ‘Why didn’t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction.’”
Trump has also said that Iran has reached out to the United States about a possible cease-fire or deal, including possible talks at the White House. But the president signaled that Iran should have done so earlier before a 60-day deadline expired last week, leading to several surprise Israeli strikes targeting Iran’s top military leadership and its nuclear program on June 13.
Earlier this week, Trump also suggested that U.S. intelligence knows where Iranian leader Ali Khamenei is located and could kill him in an airstrike, while calling for Iran’s “unconditional surrender.” He has also said—for years—that Iran cannot have possession of a nuclear weapon, reiterating that statement publicly on multiple occasions in the past week during the Iran–Israel conflict.
In response, Khamenei rebuffed Trump’s calls for surrender and indicated that Iran would not abandon its nuclear program, which Israeli officials say is meant to produce nuclear weapons. Trump told reporters on the evening of June 18 that Iran appeared to have been “weeks away” from obtaining a nuclear weapon, adding that Iran hasn’t signed an agreement.
“I‘d believe they’d use it,” Trump said, referring to whether Iran would use a nuclear weapon.
The comments from the president came hours before Iran fired a new barrage of missiles at Israel, striking a hospital. At least 240 people were wounded by the latest Iranian attack, four of them seriously, while 70 people were injured inside the hospital, according to Israel’s Health Ministry.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz blamed Khamenei and said the military “has been instructed and knows that in order to achieve all of its goals, this man absolutely should not continue to exist,” according to a translation from Hebrew to English. He did not provide details on whether a specific operation was launched to directly take out Khamenei.
