Trump questions whether Iran's new supreme leader is 'even alive' while claiming Iran is defeated and eager to negotiate

In the same NBC News interview where Trump claimed Iran wanted to make a deal, he also questioned whether the new Iranian supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei was even alive, saying 'we don't even know if he's alive.' The contradiction was stark: Trump was simultaneously claiming Iran was defeated, eager to negotiate, and had no functional leadership -- yet if all three were true, who exactly was Iran negotiating with and what leverage did they have? Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, had been selected as supreme leader after his father Ali Khamenei was killed in US-Israeli strikes on February 28. Defense Secretary Hegseth had separately said the new leader was 'likely disfigured.' Trump's pattern of claiming total victory while acknowledging he didn't know basic facts about the war's consequences continued to undermine the credibility of all his wartime statements.

"We don't even know if he's alive" — Said about Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei while simultaneously claiming Iran was eager to negotiate a deal