Iran's New Leader Appointed Against Father's Wishes: Report

Iran's new supreme leader reportedly inherited a job his father didn't want him to have. CBS News reports that US intelligence shared with President Trump indicates the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had doubts about his son Mojtaba Khamenei's abilities and suitability to succeed him, viewing him as unqualified, intellectually limited, and battling personal issues, according to unnamed sources. He even "explicitly asked Mojtaba not to be named as successor" in his will, a research director for National Union for Democracy tells the New York Post. The outlet reports the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps nonetheless "coerced" Iran's clerical council into appointing the 56-year-old as supreme leader after Ali Khamenei was killed in an Israeli strike.

Trump has privately questioned whether the intel on Mojtaba "matters," telling associates he believes Iran is effectively without a leader and suggesting Mojtaba—wounded in the strike that killed his father—may be dead, CBS reports. Publicly, he's labeled Mojtaba a "lightweight." In a Friday interview with Fox News, he said Mojtaba is "not somebody that the father even wanted." The US is offering up to $10 million for information on Mojtaba's whereabouts and those of nine other senior Iranian officials, though White House now views the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as the real power center in Tehran, per CBS. (US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has described Mojtaba as "likely disfigured.")