Trump calls for ultimate say on Iran’s subsequent chief as he rejects favorite with brutal swipe
The peace-loving president said he would refuse to accept the second son of killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the new supreme leader and wanted a say in the handover of power like he had in Venezuela
Trump wants to choose the new leader of Iran(Image: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock)
Donald Trump has demanded the say on who becomes the next leader of Iran in the same way he handpicked Venezuela’s new president. The Orange Manbaby, 79, ruled out slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s son for the job after he was muted for the role.
The US President said he “refuses to accept” a new Iranian leader who would continue Khamenei’s hard-line policies, claiming they would force the countries back to war “in five years.”
In an interview with a US news site, Trump said: “They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela.”
The late Ayatollah’s second son Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, has emerged as the front-runner to succeed his father, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on Tehran. Dozens of the Islamic regime’s top brass have also been wiped out in airstrikes.
He underwent several stints of treatment at the Wellington and Cromwell Hospitals in London after struggling to conceiving with his wife, leaked documents published in the late 2000s showed.
Both his wife and son were reportedly among the 49 people killed alongside his 86-year-old father in a Israeli strike in Tehran on Saturday.
Experts said choosing an anti-western candidate as the country’s new leader would give signal that senior figures will not seek peace talks with US. Trump told Axios: “Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran.”
His comments come after defence secretary Pete Hegseth and other US officials denied regime change is the goal of the war, claiming their focus was on degrading Iran’s missile capabilities, nuclear program and Navy.
But when asked who could replace Khamenei, Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday: “Most of the people we had in mind are dead.”
In January, the US military launched airstrikes on Venezuela before troops stormed president Nicolás Maduro’s compound in Caracas to capture him and his wife on drug trafficking charges.
In his State of the Union address, Trump called Venezuela “our new friend and partner” and said the US had received more than 80 million barrels of oil since Maduro was captured.
Trump previously said of the Iranian operation: “I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians: ‘See you again in a few years if you start rebuilding [nuclear programs].”
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