President Donald Trump said the replacement for the deceased Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his son Mojtaba Khamenei, hasn’t been killed, although he implied he was seriously injured.
The statement, made in an interview with Fox News set to air on Friday morning, was first reported by Fox and other sources on Thursday night.
The announcement comes after much speculation that the new supreme leader had also been killed in one of the airstrikes that led off the joint U.S./Israeli campaign against Iran on Feb. 28.
However, Trump told Fox host Brian Kilmeade that he believed the country’s new leader was still alive “in some form.”
“I think he probably is,” Trump said when asked if Mojtaba was still alive.
“I think he is damaged, but I think he’s probably alive in some form, you know,” he added.
Speculation as to Mojtaba Khamenei’s condition and whether he’d been a casualty of Operation Epic Fury had been a subject of speculation in recent days, especially as it became clear that he was the favorite to succeed his father, who was killed on the first day of hostilities.
Reports also emerged that Mojtaba was seriously injured in an airstrike at some point close to the outset of the war.
As Reuters noted, the new ruler of the theocratic state had not been seen since he had been selected by the Iranian Assembly of Experts Sunday.
In addition his first official remarks weren’t delivered by the 56-year-old Mojtaba himself, but instead via a presenter on state TV.
In the remarks, Reuters said, the new Ayatollah “vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz shut and called on neighboring countries to close U.S. bases on their territory or risk Iran targeting them.”
However, in perhaps the most telling sign that something was amiss, the Ayatollah wasn’t present for his installation as the country’s supreme leader.
Instead, a framed picture of him was used in his place:
لحظه اعلام رهبری آیت الله سید مجتبی حسینی خامنه ای به عنوان سومین رهبر نظام جمهوری اسلامی ایران در حرم مطهر حضرت فاطمه معصومه سلام الله علیها pic.twitter.com/PNLMa5e2rz
— SNN.ir | خبرگزاری دانشجو (@snntv_fa) March 9, 2026
In a preview of Trump’s fuller remarks on Friday, he made it clear that the replacement of the leader would make little operational difference unless it altered Iran’s capacity to wage region-wide conflict.
“Iran had thousands of missiles pointed at all these Middle Eastern countries for the last four months,” Trump said.
“They were going to take over the Middle East, they were going to control it all, UAE, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia,” adding that Tehran had “1,200 missiles pointed at these countries.”
“All these nations were afraid of Iran and they are not anymore. But they had reason to be afraid. We have knocked the hell out of them like no other nation could and they still have remnants left.”
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