David E. Sanger

And, you know, politically and tactically for President Trump, this is also huge.

It was only two months ago, not even two months ago, that he sent a Delta force in to pull Nicolas Maduro from his bed in Caracas and send him off to a prison in New York.

And now he ends up killing the supreme leader of Iran.

We don't know where this is going to go.

But it is certainly one of the most significant turning points in the American encounters in the Middle East in decades.

Well, the truth, Rachel, is we don't know because there has not been a regime change in Iran since the Shah was thrown out in the late 1970s.

And the world's a very different place.

The population's very young.

But there's also this huge, well-armed military establishment that is wildly invested in the status quo and that is invested in the nuclear program as well.

Mm-hmm.

So we're going to have to look for indicators.

There's lots of reason for enthusiasm right now.

There are people on the streets in Tehran and elsewhere celebrating the reports that Khamenei is dead.

But we also saw people celebrating in the streets in Iraq right after the liberation of Iraq by U.S.

forces.

And you know what happened there.

So it's important not to overread

what you're going to be seeing in the next 24 or 48 hours as the country comes to terms with the fact that there is a transition of some kind in the offing.

Rachel, I think there's every possibility that it could.

The rumors we were hearing at that time was that the Ayatollah had planned down four levels, depending on who was killed, right?