Trump says change in power in Iran ‘would be the best thing that could happen’

14/02/2026

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that a change in power in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen” as the U.S. administration weighs whether to take military action against Tehran.

Trump made the comments shortly after visiting with troops in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, and after he confirmed earlier in the day that he’s deploying a second aircraft carrier group to the Mideast for potential military action against Iran.

“It seems like that would be the best thing that could happen,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters when asked about pressing for the ouster of the Islamic clerical rule in Iran. “For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking.”

Trump said earlier that the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, is being sent from the Caribbean Sea to the Mideast to join other warships and military assets the U.S. has built up in the region. The planned deployment comes just days after Trump suggested another round of talks with the Iranians was at hand. Those negotiations didn’t materialize as one of Tehran’s top security officials visited Oman and Qatar this week and exchanged messages with U.S. intermediaries.

“In case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it,” Trump told reporters about the second carrier. He added, “It’ll be leaving very soon.”

Already, Gulf Arab nations have warned any attack could spiral into another regional conflict in a Mideast still reeling from the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Iranians are beginning to hold 40-day mourning ceremonies for the thousands killed in Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests last month, adding to the internal pressure faced by the sanctions-battered Islamic Republic.

The Ford, whose new deployment was first reported by The New York Times, will join the USS Abraham Lincoln and its accompanying guided-missile destroyers, which have been in the region for over two weeks. U.S. forces already have shot down an Iranian drone that approached the Lincoln on the same day last week that Iran tried to stop a U.S.-flagged ship in the Strait of Hormuz.