United States President Donald Trump has said he needs to stop targeting Iranian leaders so Washington can work out who it is actually negotiating with, in remarks at a campaign rally in Georgia that have gone viral and sharpened the focus on a possible new phase of the United States-Iran confrontation.
"They have no airplanes, no ships, no leaders, no anything... Their level-one leader is gone... their level-two leader is gone... I gotta stop killing Iranian leaders — because I gotta figure out who the hell we're negotiating with," Trump told supporters, according to reports of the rally.
What Trump actually said
Trump framed the remarks as a consequence of the military campaign against Iran. He claimed the United States had destroyed Iran's military capabilities and its senior leadership, and he repeated his insistence that Iran must never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. He also defended his 2018 decision to withdraw the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), calling it one of the worst deals ever made and saying he ended it just in time.
He pointed to two operations, Operation Midnight Hammer in 2025 and Operation Epic Fury from February to May this year, saying they had "obliterated" Iran's uranium enrichment capacity. "We defeated them militarily, financially, and otherwise," he said.
A deal or a new round of strikes
The rally remarks came as Trump has kept both options open in public. In a separate interview, he said he faced a choice between finishing the confrontation and making a deal, and he has said strikes could resume after the November 3 midterm elections. He has also moved additional military assets toward the Persian Gulf, including a third aircraft carrier group, according to reports.
At the same time, Trump ruled out an immediate strike on Sunday, telling reporters there would be no attack that day, and he described the intelligence available to his administration as "very advanced" while saying Washington was doing "well with Iran." Diplomatic efforts over the Strait of Hormuz remain stalled despite mediation efforts by Qatar, reports say.
How Iran is responding
Iranian officials have pushed back hard. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday that talk of a new war would not change Iran's positions, adding: "Whether there is war or not, our policies remain the same." Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned that any violation of Iran's territorial integrity would trigger a response "beyond the enemy's imagination."
Reports also say Iran has set seven conditions for talks with Washington, arguing that negotiations would be meaningless while the United States seeks to strip Iran of its nuclear capacity and its control over the Strait of Hormuz. In the first weeks of the war, United States and Israeli strikes killed several of Iran's top political and military leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to NDTV, while his successor Mojtaba Khamenei was seriously injured and has yet to make a public appearance.
Why this matters
Trump's own framing exposes the central problem for any negotiation: a deal needs a counterpart with authority to make and keep it. If Iran's leadership has been as badly damaged as Trump claims, identifying that counterpart becomes harder, not easier. If it has not, the remarks risk hardening Tehran's position at exactly the moment Washington says it wants talks. Either way, the next move — a deal, a delay past the midterms, or renewed strikes — will define the region's security for months.
Music in this post's reel: Kevin MacLeod - Lightless Dawn (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 3.0
Sources: NDTV, Outlook, The Express Tribune.