Trump says he fears Iran’s next leader could be ‘as bad as the previous person’

US president suggests worst-case result of ayatollah’s assassination would be regime change that fails to relieve Iran’s repression

Donald Trump said his biggest fear in the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran would be regime change that brought in leadership “as bad as the previous person”.

At an Oval Office news conference with the visiting German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, the US president was asked by a reporter about the “worst-case scenario” of the risky operation that led to the assassination on Saturday of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.