Trump on next Iranian leader

President Trump said Tuesday the worst-case scenario in Iran could be that somebody takes over the country who is "as bad" as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the former supreme leader who was killed in strikes early Saturday morning.

"I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who's as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don't want that to happen," he told reporters in the Oval Office. "You go through this and then in five years, you realize you put somebody in who's no better."

The president said some of the people his administration had considered for leadership had been killed in the military campaign, saying "pretty soon, we're not going to know anybody."

"Most of the people we had in mind are dead," he said. "We had some in mind from that group that is dead. And now we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports. So, I guess you have a third wave coming in. Pretty soon we're not going to know anybody."

President Trump said Reza Pahlavi, the exiled Iranian crown prince, was an "option" to take over the country, but that he would rather have someone "from within."

"I guess he is, some people like him," he said when asked about the son of the last Iranian shah. "It would seem to me that someone from within might be more appropriate. I've said that. He looks like a very nice person. But it would seem to me that somebody that's there, that's currently popular, if there's such a person."

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