{"id":103627,"date":"2026-01-17T23:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T23:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/103627\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T23:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T23:36:07","slug":"trump-calls-for-new-leadership-in-iran-following-nationwide-protests-nbc-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/103627\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump calls for new leadership in Iran following nationwide protests \u2013 NBC New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump on Saturday called for regime change in Iran following protests that have roiled<\/a> the country in recent weeks. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time to look for new leadership in Iran,\u201d Trump told Politico<\/a> in an interview.<\/p>\n

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Trump\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

Trump’s comments come after Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivered a defiant address Saturday<\/a> in which he accused Trump of encouraging \u201cagitators,\u201d and said that Iran considers Trump \u201ca criminal, both for the casualties, for the damages, and for the slander directed at the Iranian nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said key agitators had been detained, and the country\u2019s semiofficial Fars news agency said protests had largely subsided.<\/p>\n

Trump denounced Khamenei and Iran in his remarks to Politico, calling him \u201ca sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHis country is the worst place to live anywhere in the world because of poor leadership,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Iran\u2019s permanent mission to the United Nations declined to comment on Trump\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

Thousands of protesters have been killed since the nationwide protests began, and Trump earlier this week had urged Iranians to \u201ctake over institutions\u201d and keep their protests going, telling them that \u201chelp is on its way.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, he struck a different tone, saying he \u201cgreatly\u201d respected that \u201cover 800\u201d scheduled hangings \u201chave been cancelled by the leadership of Iran.\u201d Iran\u2019s judiciary said Thursday a man facing the death penalty would not be executed. The White House did not provide a source for the claim that 800 people have been spared.<\/p>\n

The massive crackdown on unrest has left at least 3,090 dead, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. It has also reported 22,123 arrests. Without the government’s official count, HRANA says it relies on supporters in Iran cross-checking information and that its data goes through \u201cmultiple internal checks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khamenei on Saturday acknowledged for the first time that thousands had been killed, increasing official recognition from a previous admission that hundreds had died. <\/p>\n

A U.S. official told NBC News<\/a> on Wednesday that the Defense Department is preparing to send additional U.S. forces and assets to the Middle East, intended to bolster security in the region and prepare for potential retaliation by Iran. The deployments include a carrier strike group, additional aircraft and land-based air defense systems, according to the official.<\/p>\n

The U.S. also began evacuating key personnel<\/a> from its largest military base in the Middle East on Wednesday as Trump weighed potential military action in Iran.<\/p>\n

Megan Shannon contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump on Saturday called for regime change in Iran following protests that have roiled the country…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[14670,9,11,10],"class_list":{"0":"post-103627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-iran","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}