GOP Senator Admits Wanting Regime Change In Iran After On-Air Denial

On Jan 15, 2026

CNN host Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday caught Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) making highly contradictory comments, resulting in an awkward admission about his support for U.S. regime change in Iran — and a pledge of trust in President Donald Trump to handle it.

“The Source” host noted that Trump has vowed to “come to their rescue” if the Iranian government “kills peaceful protestors,” which ongoing demonstrations there have shown is actually happening, and asked Mullin if he’s in favor of U.S. strikes and of “taking out” the regime.

He confirmed, “I would support removing the regime that’s killing their own people.”

Mullin added, “Even though we’re not into regime change, we’re not— this isn’t the Arab Spring like it happened underneath Secretary [Hillary] Clinton. And if that leadership is going to kill their own people, the president said we’ll come to your rescue.”

Mullin seemed to suggest that Trump intervening in Iran would be different than then-President Barack Obama bombing Libya in 2011, after which Clinton celebrated the killing of its leader Muammar Gaddafi by rebel forces, but Collins had already caught him slipping.

“But you just said you are for regime change here,” she told the GOP senator.

“No, I said I’m for the strikes. I didn’t say—” Mullin protested, prompting Collins to accurately double down: “But you said, before that, you are for taking out the regime.”

He then admitted, “Yes, absolutely. Because they’re the ones murdering their own people.”

“That’s different than regime change,” Mullin continued. “The regime change is up to the Iranian people. We didn’t— we’re not going actively to remove the regime. We’re going after the people that are killing their own people — and that happens to be the regime.”

“If you’re ‘for taking out the regime,’ you’re for regime change,” wrote one X user, while another person mockingly joked: “I didn’t say I was for regime change. I’m for taking out the old regime and putting in a new regime that favors us. How is that regime change?”

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While the death toll amid nationwide protests against Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has surpassed 2,000 people, critics of Mullin’s regime change support argued it hasn’t “worked out so well” when “the US gets involved” in the Middle East.

Others noted the U.S. already intervened in Iran in 1953 — by overthrowing democratically elected then-Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and installing Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as the Shah, resulting in decades of extremist rule and government oppression.

Mullin on Tuesday claimed the Iranian people “have spoken” and “want a regime change.” When asked what will happen to Iran if the U.S. helps overthrow Khamenei, he said it’s “up to the Iranian people” — and that America “wasn’t part of this uprising.”

“We’re just there to support the people that are uprising, that’s finally pushing against this regime,” he continued. “You’ll see a leader that will emerge. And will that be the Shah’s son? Maybe. But that will be up to the Iranian people.”

Iran holds the world’s third-largest proven oil reserves after Saudi Arabia — and Venezuela.