Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday declared that Donald Trump wasn’t responsible for teeing up a regime change for Iran in the wake of his deadly strikes on the country which killed its supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
In an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Graham reacted to a social media post from the president where he wrote that “hopefully” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), along with its military and police forces, would work together to “bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves.”
“Is hope the plan for the future of Iran?” asked host Kristen Welker.
Graham, a longtime Trump ally and foreign policy hawk, distanced the president from the potential fallout of his own attack, instead framing the joint military offensive with Israel as a way to weaken what he called the “mothership of terrorism.”
“The new Iran, whatever it is, whether it’s a cleric, or a representative democracy, our goal is to make sure it cannot become again the largest state sponsor of terrorism,” Graham said. “That’s a win for us. That’s a win for the region.”
