# Donald Trump — "I never cared about regime change." > [!quote] "I never cared about regime change." > — Donald Trump, G7 summit, France, June 16, 2026 ## Context Speaking to reporters at the G7 summit in France, Trump waved away his failure to topple the Iranian government after the [[Iran War 2026]] — a war he had opened on February 28, 2026 with strikes that killed Supreme Leader [[Ali Khamenei]]. Earlier in the year, regime change had been a stated objective; the new supreme leader, [[Mojtaba Khamenei]], remains in power with the IRGC intact. ## Why This Matters The line is a textbook goalpost-shift: a war aim openly pursued earlier in 2026 is retroactively disowned once it proves unachievable. It belongs to the same contradictory messaging stream catalogued in [[Trump Iran War Quotes]], where victory claims, ultimatums, and reversals cycle faster than any of them can be checked against events on the ground. ## See Also - [[Donald Trump]] - [[Iran War 2026]] - [[Trump Iran War Quotes]] - [[Mojtaba Khamenei]]