Trump says Iran’s Khamenei ‘should be very worried’

Asked if Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei should be worried, US President Donald Trump responds, “He should be very worried.”

The comments in an interview with NBC News come amid reports that efforts to advance a diplomatic off-ramp to tensions between the US and Iran are falling apart, raising the prospects of military conflict.

“They’re negotiating with us,” Trump says.

The reporter then points out that Iranian protesters against the regime are feeling betrayed by Trump, who had expressed his support for them and urged them to take to the streets, where thousands were then reportedly killed. Trump has since boasted of having stopped the purportedly planned executions of another 800 protesters.

“We do have their back,” Trump says of the protesters. “That country is a mess right now because of us. We went in, [and] we wiped out their nuclear [program],” Trump says of the US strikes on two of Iran’s nuclear sites last June, during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel.

After Trump again claims Iran’s entire nuclear program was obliterated, he is pressed on what nuclear talks with Iran are even meant to address if that is the case.

Trump claims that Iran has since tried rebuilding its program at other sites, which he says will lead to the US striking again.

Trump has avoided acknowledging that there were some nuclear sites not targeted in the June US strike and that the location of already-enriched uranium stockpiles is unknown — two points that undercut his claim that the nuclear program was completely destroyed.