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Topics: Iran, Israel, Donald Trump, Politics, World News, US News
Niamh Shackleton
Topics: Iran, Israel, Donald Trump, Politics, World News, US News
As the conflict between Iran, Israel and the US rages on, the president was asked if Americans should be worried about retaliatory attacks on US soil.
Iran was showered with air strikes on February 28 in a joint US and Israeli attack that killed Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei.
The conflict has continued for several days now, and President Trump has forewarned that it might go on for longer than expected — something which could have a huge economic impact on American taxpayers.
Iran has hit back at the US and Israel, largely focusing its attacks on Middle Eastern countries with ties to America.
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Kuwait, for example, was hit with a drone strike on March 1 which claimed the lives of six American soldiers; four of whom have been publicly named.
But there's still a chance Iran will launch attacks on US soil. With this in mind, President Trump was asked if people should be worried.
Acknowledging the possibility, he said in an interview with TIME: "I guess. But I think they’re worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time."
Trump continued: "We plan for it. But yeah, you know, we expect some things. Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die."
Also weighing in on the possibility of Iran striking America directly, former DHS assistant secretary for counterterrorism and threat protection Sam Vinograd shared her thoughts with CBS News.
"It is clear that it is an all-hands-on-deck moment, not just for the US government, but for every American when it comes to countering the regime's ability to attack the homeland," she said.
Vinograd added that 'every individual in this country right now needs to be aware of the threat from proxies, from individuals that the regime hires'.
She went on to say that Iran poses a 'multidimensional threat'. Explaining why, Vinograd shared: "They seek to inflict damage in our physical spaces, in cyberspace and in terms of the actual information that we're ingesting and digesting and circulating right now."
Elsewhere in Trump's interview with TIME, he shared his hopes of being able to help shape the new regime in Iran after Khamenei's assassination.
"One of the things I’m going to be asking for is the ability to work with them on choosing a new leader," said Trump.
"I’m not going through this to end up with another Khamenei. I want to be involved in the selection. They can select, but we have to make sure it’s somebody that’s reasonable to the United States."