Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said during an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that it is not the United States’ job to pick Iran’s next leader and that the U.S. should not put boots on the ground after Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a series of pre-dawn strikes by U.S. and Israeli forces.
Pressed by moderator Kristen Welker on whether the U.S. has a plan to ensure that Iran’s future was determined by Iranians and that Iran would not be a major state sponsor of terrorism, Graham argued that it was not up to Americans.
“It’s not his job or my job to do this,” Graham said. “How many times do I have to tell you? Our job is to make sure Iran is no longer the largest state sponsor of terrorism, to help the people reconstruct a new government. No boots on the ground.”
Graham argued that it was in the U.S.’ interest to ensure that Khamenei was dead. President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that Khamenei was killed in an attack, and he said in a Saturday interview with NBC News that “most” of the people who make decisions for Iran “are gone.”
“It’s in America’s interest to make sure that Iran can no longer be the largest state sponsor of terrorism,” Graham said. “We’re close. Once the people decide what they want to do next, I don’t mind helping them, but I know what they’re not going to be allowed to do next: regenerate the largest state sponsor of terrorism.”
Democrats were split on whether the U.S. was safer with Khamenei dead.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said on “Meet the Press” that he disagreed with Graham, arguing that the senator has “been consistently wrong.”
“Let me say this: Khamenei was a brutal dictator, but Americans are not safer today,” Khanna said.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said in a separate interview on “Meet the Press” that he agreed with Graham’s assessment that the world was safer with Khamenei dead. At the same time, Kelly criticized Trump’s post to Truth Social referencing his hopes for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and police to “peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots.”
“Hope is not a strategy,” Kelly said. “We got to have a plan here. I mean, what is the strategic goal, and how do we achieve it?”
Asked whether the U.S. could continue the operation without boots on the ground, Kelly said “that is incredibly challenging.” Kelly argued during the interview that Iran cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, but criticized Trump for having withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal during his first term.
Graham asserted during his interview that “there will be no American boots on the ground.”
“This is not Iraq. This is not Germany. This is not Japan,” he said. “We’re going to free the people up from a terrorist regime.”
Graham has been an ardent backer of the administration’s decision to strike Iran. In a post on X Saturday, Graham called the move “one of the most consequential military operations in modern history.” In a separate post, he argued that Trump has “become the gold standard for foreign policy achievements as a Republican president.”
In the aftermath of the strikes, several Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have called for a war powers vote to compel the administration to seek permission from Congress before engaging in future military action.
Asked whether he would vote to support a war powers resolution, Kelly said he would “have to take a close look at it.”
“I want to hear from the White House what their strategy is going forward,” Kelly said. “I would say at this point, it’s rather unlikely that I would be.”
Khanna said on “Meet the Press” that he believed that every Democrat would ultimately support a war powers vote. He conceded that it would likely not pass, but argued that the vote would be “close” and that “we’ve got a few days to work on it.”
“We’re at war with Iran,” he said. “We killed their leader. We have over 100 of our fighter jets bombing them. The point of this resolution is to say, ‘we do not want another war in the Middle East,’ or at least Congress should opine on that, should vote on that.”
Across the aisle, Graham has condemned European leaders who urged diplomacy after the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, calling them “pathetically weak” in a Saturday interview with Fox News.
“To our European friends, you’ve lost your way,” he said on Saturday. “You’ve lost your sense of who you are and what makes you different. You’re pathetically weak.”
In the same interview, he argued that calls for negotiations were an “offense to the Iranian people.”
Graham previously shared similar criticism on X, arguing that the heads of France, Germany and the United Kingdom were wrong for not helping the Iranian people, and “adding insult to injury, you’re suggesting we should continue to negotiate with religious Nazis.”