Donald Trump told CBS News he knows exactly who will decide Ali Khamenei's successor, adding that there are "several good candidates" for Iran's leadership.
Donald Trump recently spoke with CBS News regarding the highly sensitive topic of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's succession, according to Iran International, a prominent diaspora news network known for its strong opposition stance against the Islamic Republic.
In a telephone interview, Trump claimed to have specific inside knowledge regarding the opaque power transition process in Tehran. As reported by Vahid Online, a widely followed citizen-journalism aggregator that routinely amplifies anti-regime news and protests, Trump stated: "I know exactly who the decision-maker is, but I cannot say."
When pressed during the interview on whether there is a suitable individual to take over the leadership of Iran, Trump responded affirmatively. Both networks prominently highlighted his exact response, noting he said, "Yes, there are several good candidates".
The identical dissemination of these quotes by two major pillars of Persian-language opposition media—garnering over 233,000 combined views on Telegram alone—underscores the intense scrutiny and ongoing speculation surrounding the future of Iran's leadership and Washington's perceived awareness of the transition.
Both source channels provided verbatim identical text regarding Trump's interview, reflecting a unified focus in Persian opposition media on US leadership's awareness of Iran's internal power dynamics. The quotes are straight translations of the Farsi reporting, which was presented neutrally as breaking news but carries heavy editorial weight given both networks' primary focus on the eventual fall or transition of the current Iranian establishment.