Trump claims Iran leadership ‘neutered,’ says country need not be democratic if it treats US well
Trump said selecting a new leader in Iran would be easy and compared the situation to Venezuela.
US President Donald Trump has said Iran's leadership has been "neutered" and indicated he is not concerned whether the country becomes a democratic state if its leader treats the US and Israel well.
"Iran is not the same country it was a week ago. A week ago, they were powerful, and now they've been indeed neutered," Trump told CNN in a phone interview on Friday (6 March).
Trump said selecting a new leader in Iran would be easy and compared the situation to Venezuela after the United States captured Nicolás Maduro earlier this year.
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"It's gonna work very easily. It's going to work like did in Venezuela. We have a wonderful leader there. She's doing a fantastic job. And it's going to work like in Venezuela," he said, referring to acting president Delcy Rodriguez.
He also said he could accept a religious leader in Iran.
"Well I may be yeah, I mean, it depends on who the person is. I don't mind religious leaders. I deal with a lot of religious leaders and they are fantastic," he said.
Pressed on whether he is insisting Iran needs to be a democratic state, Trump said: "No, I'm saying there has to be a leader that's going be fair and just. Do a great job. Treat the United States and Israel well and treat the other countries in the Middle East, they're all our partners."
"And I became very friendly with all those countries. That's why they're all fighting for us. Before I got involved, we didn't even speak to UAE and Saudi Arabia. Biden and Obama shut Saudi Arabia, UAE Qatar, he shut them all out. They were all going to go to China, and I got involved in very short period of time that became my friends," he said.
The president also touted the recent US military operation against Iran, describing it as extremely successful.
"That's all right. It'll be short term time. It'll go way down very quickly," he said about rising gas prices.
"We've knocked their Navy because, you know, when you knock out the Navy, they can't do what they wanted to be able to do. We just hit about the 25 mark. Can you imagine that? Big ones – 25 ships are down," he said.
In the same interview, Trump predicted political change in Cuba.
"Cuba is gonna fall pretty soon, by the way, unrelated, but Cuba is gonna fall too. They want to make a deal so badly," he said.
