Despite President Donald Trump posting on Truth Social on Sunday suggesting that he sought regime change in Iran, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed his remarks when speaking to reporters on Monday morning.

“The president was just raising a question that I think many around the world are asking,” Leavitt said. “If the Iranian regime refuses to give up their nuclear program or engage in talks, we just took out their nuclear program on Saturday night, as you all know. But if they refuse to engage in diplomacy moving forward, why shouldn’t the Iranian people rise up against this brutal terrorist regime? That’s the question the President raised last night.”

Trump posted earlier, “It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change?”

His comments were at odds with other senior administration officials who have insisted that the U.S. strikes were solely intended to disable the Iranian nuclear program and that Trump still remained focused on securing a diplomatic solution. 

“We do not want regime change,” Vice President JD Vance said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “We do not want to protract this or build this out anymore than it’s already been built out. We want to end their nuclear program and then we want to talk to the Iranians about a long-term settlement here.”

Leavitt insisted to reporters that the U.S. was successful in completely destroying the Iranian nuclear program, despite signs that the fortified nuclear site of Fordow was severely damaged, but not completely destroyed. In the days prior to the strike, satellite imagery also showed trucks stationed at Fordow, leading some analysts to speculate that Iran evacuated some of its uranium stockpile.

President Donald Trump dismissed Tucker Carlson at several points on Monday over Carlson’s comments opposing Trump’s support for Israeli strikes on Iran.

Trump, in recent days, has distanced himself from isolationist figures in the party who have condemned the strikes on Iran. Asked Monday at the G7 Summit in Canada about Carlson’s comments accusing Trump of being “complicit” in the war, Trump quipped, “I don’t know what Tucker Carlson is saying. Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen.”

Trump later posted on his Truth Social platform, “Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that, ‘Iran CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!’”

Over the weekend, Trump had also criticized isolationists in his party,, declaring in an interview, “I think I’m the one that decides” what constitutes America First, adding, “For those people who say they want peace—you can’t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon.”

Carlson, who recently called for the U.S. to abandon Israel and to not provide any further funding or weapons, again criticized U.S. support for Israel in an appearance on former Trump advisor Steve Bannon’s show on Monday, and claimed that the administration was following direction from “foreign governments” aiming to enact “regime change” in Iran and who were dictating to the U.S. who its enemies should be.

While arguing that involvement in the conflict was not in the U.S.’ interests, neither Carlson nor Bannon mentioned or acknowledged Iran and its proxy forces’ role in the deaths of Americans across the Middle East in recent decades.