WASHINGTON — President Trump said in a “Pod Force One” interview out Wednesday that he expects to meet Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and the at-war leaders are “getting along quite well” despite sputtering peace talks.
Mojtaba, 56, hasn’t been seen in public since the war started on Feb. 28 with surprise US-Israeli airstrikes that reportedly injured him and killed his father, the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and other members of his family.
“He’s involved, absolutely. Yeah, I think they have a lot of respect for him,” Trump said of the younger Khamenei, whose seclusion has resulted in peace talks being protracted by a days-long process of snail-mail couriers.
“I haven’t had the privilege of meeting him… If you believe the stories, he’s missing a lot of different parts,” Trump told The Post’s Miranda Devine.
“They say he is giving approval, because that’s the way it has been for a long, long time. His father and then him, I guess it’s a succession. But we seem to be getting along quite well.”
Asked about a possible meeting, Trump told Devine: “Yeah, I’d like to meet him. I’d love to meet everybody. I would like to meet him and we probably will meet at some point, depending on how it all works out.”
Trump has unconventionally welcomed in-person contact with other American adversaries, arguing the norms-busting approach can forge relationships that make the country safer.
During his first term, Trump exchanged what he referred to as “love letters” with nuclear-armed North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, with whom he met three times, de-escalating atomic saber-rattling.
Also during his first term, Trump planned to host the Taliban at Camp David for peace talks, before the idea was scrapped.
The president’s shifting tone on Mojtaba Khamenei is notable.
Trump previously dismissed him as a “lightweight” and an “unacceptable” choice to run Iran and said the rumors about his sexuality put “him off to a bad start in that particular country.”
Trump was briefed by intelligence officials in March that Mojtaba was probably gay — with the president and other aides laughing aloud at the unconfirmed spy-agency lead, which suggested he’s had a long-term romantic relationship with a childhood tutor.
