President Trump spoke to ABC News’s Jonathan Karl on Sunday and boasted that he got Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “before he got me.”
Trump announced the strikes on Iran on Saturday morning.
The President later released a statement on Truth Social, confirming the death of the Ayatollah and urging the people of Iran to rise up and take over their government.
“The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!” Trump said.
“I got him before he got me. They tried twice. Well I got him first,” Trump told Jonathan Karl in reference to a foiled plot to kill then-candidate Trump in 2024.
He further spoke with Trump about the next leader of Iran, the timeline of Operation Epic Fury, and the troops that were killed by Iran over the last few days.
As The Gateway Pundit reported, US Central Command confirmed an updated death toll, announcing that a fourth troop, “who was seriously wounded during Iran’s initial attacks,” has passed after they said three were killed and five were injured on Sunday.
Trump, Karl said, “marveled at the fact that, with all the operations he has conducted as president in Venezuela, the one last summer in Iran, and this one, that the total casualty count, American casualties, is three.”
Trump has told numerous outlets that the operation could last four or five weeks, but has also said he could end it in a few days. On the first day of the operation, Trump told Axios he could “go long and take over the whole thing or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians: ‘See you again in a few years if you start rebuilding [your nuclear and missile programs].”
“The President told me we always thought, he always thought it was going to be a four or five week deal. That’s what he told me, a four or five week operation. He said it could be shorter, and he was prepared to go longer,” Karl said.
WATCH:
I just spoke to President Trump for several minutes about Iran. I asked him about who is going to take over now that the Ayatollah, the Supreme Leader is gone, and his answer was interesting. He said the attack was so successful, it knocked out most of the candidates.
He told me it’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. I talked to him about the fact that the Iranians had tried to kill him. There was a plot in 2024, an Iranian plot, to try to kill Trump. And he said, of the Ayatollah, I got him before he got me. They tried twice. Well, I got him first.
As for how long the war will go on, the President told me we always thought, he always thought it was going to be a four or five week deal. That’s what he told me, a four or five week operation. He said it could be shorter, and he was prepared to go longer.
And about the three Americans who were killed, the President said, it’s war and you have casualties in war. He marveled at the fact that, with all the operations he has conducted as president in Venezuela, the one last summer in Iran, and this one, that the total casualty count, American casualties, is three. That’s a quick summary of a rather lengthy conversation with President Trump tonight.
Karl shared on X:
In another phone call this evening, President Trump told me this about the death of Ayatollah Khamenei:
“I got him before he got me. They tried twice. Well I got him first.”
That’s a reference to what US intelligence believes was a plot to kill Trump in 2024.
In another phone call this evening, President Trump told me this about the death of Ayatollah Khamenei:
“I got him before he got me. They tried twice. Well I got him first.”
That’s a reference to what US intelligence believes was a plot to kill Trump in 2024.
— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) March 2, 2026
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