At Ohio rally, Trump says U.S. went too far with Iran’s leaders

Campaigning in Ohio, President Donald Trump told supporters that strikes on Iran’s leadership may have overshot, saying Washington could have stopped at "level one" and now struggles to find anyone in Tehran to deal with.

Speaking to supporters at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, President Donald Trump offered a rare note of second-guessing about the war with Iran, suggesting that the campaign against the country’s leadership may have gone further than necessary.

"We might have gone too far with the leaders because we don’t know who the hell we’re dealing with anymore," Trump said. He went on: "I think we went too far. We could have stopped at level one. Level two and level two and a half was probably going too far."

Searching for a counterpart

The remarks point to a practical problem for the White House as it weighs its next steps: the lack of an obvious partner for talks. "We’re having a hard time figuring out who the hell to deal with, to be honest with you," Trump told the crowd, claiming that "nobody wants to be the president of Iran," even though Masoud Pezeshkian has held the office since July 2024.

In the same speech, Trump asserted that Iran had lost its air force and all 159 of its ships, describing them as "resting beautifully at the bottom of the sea." Those figures have not been independently confirmed.

Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei (file photo)

New front in Yemen

The comments come as the president is reported to be weighing whether to join attacks on Yemen’s Houthis, who have stepped up missile strikes on Saudi Arabia and threatened U.S. personnel in the region. Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the U.S.-Israeli strikes that opened the war on Feb. 28; his son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, has not been seen in public since his selection in March.