White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt talked down to a reporter Wednesday when he asked a straightforward question about the war in Iran, and the answer only made things more confusing.
Leavitt projected total confidence while defending Donald Trump’s latest claim that the conflict has already triggered a “regime change,” even as basic details about who is actually leading Iran, and whether any deal even exists, remain unclear.
Trump has been insisting the leadership in Iran is “completely different” and that a deal is basically within reach, despite Iran publicly denying negotiations and ongoing mixed signals from his own administration.
“This war has been won,” Trump said in the Oval Office Tuesday. “The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news.”
“We killed all their leadership,” he told CBS News’ Ed O’Keefe. “And then they met to choose new leaders and we killed all of them. And now we have a new group, and we can easily do that, but let’s see how they turn out.”
“It’s — we have, really, regime change,” the president said. “You know, this is a change in the regime, because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with that created all those problems. So this was, I think we can say, Jason, this is regime change, right?”
Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, stepped into power after his father, Ali Khamenei, was killed on the first day of the war, but what’s happening behind the scenes is far less clear than the title suggests.
Mojtaba Khamenei hasn’t been seen publicly since being tapped to take over, and reports suggest he may have been wounded in that same strike. Still, despite the uncertainty around him, there’s been no visible collapse inside Iran’s leadership.
If anything, the country’s power structure looks intact. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard remains firmly in control of Iran’s war effort.
Still, Leavitt brushed past the contradictions and nearly shamed the reporter for questioning Trump’s remarks.
“Trump yesterday said that he had achieved regime change in Iran because the regime has changed in terms of—” the reporter said before being interrupted by Leavitt.
“I mean, has it not?” she interjected.
View on Threads
“Their entire leadership has been killed, and no one has really seen or legitimately heard from this new alleged leader,” Leavitt added.
However, Leavitt’s misinterpretation or attempt to change the narrative didn’t go unnoticed by viewers.
“These people need a dictionary. Regime is not one person. It’s a system of government. That has not changed,” one person wrote. “I think when your goal is regime change it’s not usually “change for the worse! Mission accomplished!” but what do I know,” another person chimed in.
“There had not been and there is no plan on Iran fiasco! THERE IS NO plan!” another concluded.
According to Britannica, a regime is “the overthrow of a government considered illegitimate by an external force, leading to its replacement with a new government aligned with the interests of that force.”
