President Donald Trump said he believes Iran’s new supreme leader is still alive, responding to a media report containing speculation that Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei may have succumbed to injuries sustained when the U.S. and Israel launched the Iran war.
The Atlantic reported that Tehran is “abuzz” with talk of Khamenei’s death and cited unnamed sources inside and close to the government who speculated that Khamenei eventually died of his injuries.
“I don’t think he’s dead,” Trump told radio host Glenn Beck, who asked about The Atlantic report in an Aug. 26 interview. “He was very seriously wounded. The left side of his body, the arm, the leg, the whole thing. He was very seriously wounded but I don’t think he’s dead.”
President Trump joins dignified transfer for soldiers lost in Iran war
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President Donald Trump arrives at Dover Air Force Base to attend the dignified transfer of U.S. Army service members killed in Jordan and Iraq, amid the Iran war, in Dover, Del., July 22, 2026. Hours before he arrived, President Donald Trump said the U.S. would escalate retaliatory strikes against Iran.
(Evelyn Hockstein, REUTERS)
Trump noted that Iranian negotiators talk about getting Khamenei’s approval, so if he’s dead, “they’re putting on a pretty good show.”
“They talk about going back to talk to him all the time to get a final blessing on things,” Trump said.
The U.S. and Israel killed much of Iran’s senior leadership in the initial round of strikes, including former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Mojtaba Khamenei’s father.
A still image from undated archive footage released by Iranian media on August 24, 2026, shows Mojtaba Khamenei attending a meeting before he assumed the role of Iran’s Supreme Leader, at an unknown location.
Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, was quickly selected as the new supreme leader. Iran’s Assembly of Experts, a group of 88 clerics, picked the mid-ranking cleric with influence in the country’s security forces and business networks to succeed his father, announcing the decision March 8.
Yet Khamenei has remained out of public view since the announcement. He wasn’t at his father’s wake recently, and there have been no recent pictures, videos or audio recordings of him, according to The Atlantic.
Trump expressed frustration with Iran’s negotiators during his interview with Beck, saying “you make a deal with them … it’s not the most honorable group, I will tell you that.” After a June peace deal collapsed amid jockeying over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for oil shipments, the president lately has focused on applying economic pressure to Tehran. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently announced a plan for additional sanctions.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ‘I don’t think he’s dead,’ Trump says of Iranian leader amid speculation