President Donald Trump apparently finds it hilarious that the new supreme leader of Iran might be gay.
The president, 79, was briefed on the U.S. intelligence about Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei last week, according to a report in the New York Post.
It indicated that the new leader and son of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was gay and that his father was concerned he was not suitable to rule the Islamic Republic because of it.
The Post reported that Trump could not contain his surprise at the intelligence and kept laughing when he was briefed on the matter, according to sources.
Others in the room found it “hilarious” and joined the president in his laughter, the report said. A person familiar with the briefing said one senior intelligence official “has not stopped laughing about it for days.”
The Daily Beast reached out to the White House for comment on the briefing.
Publicly, the president has voiced displeasure that Iran has named Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, the replacement of the late Ayatollah. He was annoyed that Iran dared to name its new leader without his buy-in as the war raged with Iran retaliating to the U.S. with strikes throughout the Middle East and major disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s new leader has not been seen publicly since before being appointed supreme leader last weekend, a week after his father was killed in the initial U.S. strikes on Iran on February 28.
Before being named supreme leader, Khamenei had been described as working in the shadows and as an even greater hardliner than his father.
On Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed reports that the younger Khamenei was injured early on in the war, stating during his Pentagon press conference that he was “wounded and likely disfigured.”
An earlier report from the New York Times indicated that Khamenei suffered injuries to his legs in the initial February 28 strikes.
There have been a series of efforts to undermine the new Iranian leader as the country scrambles to respond to the U.S.
Multiple reports indicate that the late ayatollah had his own reservations about his son succeeding him.
According to the New York Times, the former supreme leader had given senior advisors three names for potential successors before he was killed, but his son’s name was not among them.
The younger Khamenei does have some powerful allies behind him, however, including the Revolutionary Guards and the speaker of the Parliament, Gen. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
U.S. intelligence given to the president indicated that the late ayatollah had concerns about his son succeeding him, sources told CBS News. It said that the analysis found the younger Khamenei was “perceived as not very bright, and was viewed as unqualified to be leader.”
Trump seemed to indicate part of the analysis on Friday, when he told Fox News radio that the new supreme leader “is not somebody that the father even wanted.”
In that same interview, the president sowed further confusion when he suggested Khamenei was “probably” alive but said, “I think he’s damaged, but I think he’s probably alive in some form.”
While Trump has suggested that Iran is essentially leaderless, the president faces mounting questions over the escalation of the war, with the U.S. deploying additional marines to the region and Trump begging allies to help protect the Strait of Hormuz as disruptions in the crucial waterway continue.
