As the Iranians get closer to naming their next supreme leader, President Donald Trump said Sunday the new leader “is not going to last long” if the Iranians don’t get his approval first.
“He’s going to have to get approval from us,” the president told ABC News. “If he doesn’t get approval from us he’s not going to last long. We want to make sure that we don’t have to go back every 10 years, when you don’t have a president like me that’s not going to do it.”
He added, “I don’t want people to have to go back in five years and have to do the same thing again or worse let them have a nuclear weapon.”
When asked if he would be willing to approve someone with ties to the old regime, Trump replied, “I would, in order to choose a good leader I would, yeah, I would. There are numerous people that could qualify.”
Seeming to offer yet another justification for this war, Trump said Iran was planning to take over the entire Middle East, and suggested he stopped them from doing so.
“They are a paper tiger. They weren’t a paper tiger a week ago, I’ll tell you. And they were going to attack,” he said. “Their plan was to attack the entire Middle East, to take over the entire Middle East.”
He also hasn’t ruled out sending in special forces to seize Iran’s enriched uranium: “Everything is on the table. Everything.”
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while traveling aboard Air Force One en route from Dover Air Force Base, Del., to Miami, March 7, 2026.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
A senior administration official told reporters last week that Iran has enriched enough uranium to get to weapons grade material in 10 days or less.
Much of the uranium is believed to be held at the sites bombed during Operation Midnight Hammer — Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow — according to the official.
“In theory, if we had physical control of that territory, if we had physical control of those places where it’s located, we could send our people in and dilute it on premise,” the official said.
Plumes of smoke from a U.S.-Israeli strike on an oil facility late Saturday linger and merge with the cloudy sky over Tehran, Iran, March 8, 2026.
Vahid Salemi/AP
Over the weekend, Trump met with the families of the six U.S. fallen soldiers. Did witnessing the dignified transfers give him pause?
“No, not at all,” he said. “The parents would be upset if I did that. The parents said to me, every one of them, please sir, win this for my boy, and in one case a young woman, as you know. Please, win this for my child.”
He added, “It was a beautiful event. It was a beautiful, beautiful event, where I met the parents. They were devastated but proud.”
Trump said he wouldn’t predict how long the war would last when pressed on a timeline.
“I don’t know. I never predict. All I can say is we are ahead of schedule both in terms of lethality and in terms of time,” he said.
An explosion erupts following strikes near Azadi Tower close to Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran, March 7, 2026.
Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images
Last week, the president told reporters this war would last just four to five weeks.
In the interview, the president also dismissed rising gasoline prices as a “little glitch.”
“I think it’s fine. It’s a little glitch. We had to take this detour,” he said. “I knew exactly what was going to happen with the detour. But the nice part is we sank 44 of their ships which is their entire navy. We’ve knocked out their entire AirForce. We’ve knocked out all of their communications, telecommunications. Their anti-aircraft systems are gone. They have absolutely no defense. All they have is talk.”
Some of the president’s longtime supporters have raised questions about this operation, but Trump denied there’s been any pushback from his base.
“It’s more popular than ever. It’s a very MAGA thing what we’re doing. A very very MAGA thing,” he said. “Because otherwise we won’t have a country either, we’ll be hit. And MAGA is all about saving America … I’m at the highest point I’ve ever been with MAGA.”