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By Andrew Stanton and Gabe Whisnant
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President Donald Trump said he plans to play a direct role in choosing Iran’s next leader following the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to an interview with Axios.
Trump told the outlet Thursday he considers Mojtaba Khamenei, the slain leader’s son and a likely successor, to be “unacceptable.” The president compared the situation to Venezuela, saying he was personally involved in leadership decisions there and intends to be similarly engaged with Iran.
Trump said the United States wants a new Iranian leader who would bring “harmony and peace,” warning that a continuation of the current path could lead to renewed conflict.
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The war in Iran widened again on Thursday as Israeli evacuation orders sent residents scrambling in Beirut, European governments rushed additional military assets into the Middle East, and global markets braced for further instability. Six days into the U.S.–Israeli bombing campaign, the war is spilling rapidly across borders, reshaping regional politics and alarming world leaders. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to work to evacuate citizens in the region.
U.S. officials have said the goal of the operations against Iran has been to diminish the Middle Eastern nation's nuclear program and Navy, not regime change.
When asked by reporters about who he would like to see rule Iran on Tuesday, Trump said, "Most of the people we had in mind are dead."
Who Is the Current Leader of Iran?
It's not clear exactly who will emerge as Iran's new leader, but Mojtaba Khamenei has been viewed as a contender. An 88-member council known as the Assembly of Experts will be tasked with picking the next leader. Others thought to be in the mix include Hassan Khomeini—the grandson of the first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini—and senior cleric Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, Newsweek previously reported.
Currently, a temporary council comprising Arafi, Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei is leading the country.
Who Is Mojtaba Khamenei?
Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, is viewed as a potential replacement for his father. He was born in 1969 in the city of Mashhad, about 10 years before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. After the fall of the Shah, his family moved to Tehran. He fought in the Iran-Iraq war alongside Habib ibn Mazahir, the Associated Press reported.
He became an increasingly influential figure as his father took power in 1989. The AP reported that U.S. diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks had described him as "the power behind the robes" and "widely viewed within the regime as a capable and forceful leader and manager who may someday succeed to at least a share of national leadership."
He had also studied with religious clerics in Qom, creating relationships with religious leadership, The New York Times reported.
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He was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2019 for allegedly working to "advance his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives."
"The Supreme Leader has delegated a part of his leadership responsibilities to Mojataba Khamenei, who worked closely with the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and also the Basij Resistance Force (Basij) to advance his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives. The IRGC-QF is designated pursuant to Treasury’s counterterrorism authority (E.O. 13224) and as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, while the Basij is designated pursuant to both E.O. 13224 and Treasury’s human rights designation authority (E.O. 13553)," the U.S. Treasury wrote in a statement at the time.
Why Is Iran Attacking Other Countries?
Iran has launched strikes against several other countries in the Middle East since the U.S. and Israel struck it over the weekend. It has launched retaliatory strikes on Israel and Gulf Arab allies hosting U.S. forces, including bases in Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.
The United States and Israel struck Iran in a military operation dubbed Operation Epic Fury early Saturday morning after failed talks between the U.S. and Iran to address Iran’s nuclear program. Iran had declined to halt uranium enrichment, a major demand from the U.S. The strikes have continued in the days since and killed Ayatollah Khamenei.
Trump said the strikes were intended to crush Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities and urged Iranians to overthrow their leaders once the operation ends, telling them to “take over your government.”
Iran has repeatedly denied pursuing a nuclear weapon and had engaged in diplomatic talks with the U.S. only days earlier to prevent military conflict.
Trump has previously called for regime change in Iran. The U.S. launched strikes against Iran in June 2025, damaging three major nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. The president also referenced Iran’s recent bloody crackdown on protesters in the country in his speech, saying, “Iran is the world's number one state sponsor of terror and just recently killed tens of thousands of its own citizens on the street as they protested.”
The Defense Intelligence Agency's 2025 Worldwide Threat Assessment report concluded that Iran had not been producing a nuclear weapon.
"Iran almost certainly is not producing nuclear weapons, but Iran has undertaken activities in recent years that better position it to produce them, if it chooses to do so. Since 2019, Iran conducted activities that exceed previous Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) limits, including increasing the size and enrichment levels of its uranium stockpile, producing small quantities of uranium metal, restricting International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring to preJCPOA levels, and expanding uranium enrichment at its Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant," the report reads.
The U.S. has signaled plans to strike deeper into Iran.
Will Iran Attack the United States?
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wrote in a memo reported by ABC News that a "large-scale physical attack" against the United States is "unlikely," but did warn of short-term threats.
"In the short-term, we are most concerned that Iran-aligned hacktivists will conduct low-level cyber attacks against US networks, such as website defacements and distributed denial-of-service attacks," the memo reads.
The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) fellow Benjaim Jensen wrote in a February 26 update that Iran could use cyberattacks to retaliate. Iran could "opt for a range of cyber operations, ranging from simple website defacement and promoting bots spreading regime propaganda to more sophisticated attacks against critical infrastructure," he wrote.
Update 3/5/26, 1:43 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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