US President Donald Trump confirmed that US intelligence officials briefed him that the Iranian Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, may be gay.
Speaking to Fox News in an interview, Trump said, “Well, they did say that, but I don't know if it was only them. He then added, “I think a lot of people are saying that,” and that the leader was off to a “bad start” in Iran, where homosexuality is illegal.
A report by the New York Post claimed earlier this month that Trump was stunned to learn that the US intelligence indicated that Mojtaba may be gay and that his father, Ali Khamenei, had questioned whether he would be fit to rule.
Last week, two US Intelligence officers told the New York Post that when they were told that the Mojtaba might be gay, the private briefing erupted into laughter.
Otrump and the other in the room also found the situation hilarious. One senior official said he e“had not stopped laughing for days.
The intelligence report also suggested that Mojtaba had a long-term relationship with his childhood tutor, who worked for the Khamenei family, and made aggressive sexual advances toward men caring for him.
Some of the details about Khamenei’s personal life had surfaced earlier. A classified document from 2008, also later published by WikiLeaks, shows that he was being treated for impotence. The state department also said that he married later in life, at around age 30, and that he reportedly had an impotency problem, which he got treated for in three extended visits to the UK at Wellington and Cromwell hospitals.
“Mojtaba was expected by his family to produce children quickly, but needed a fourth visit to the UK for medical treatment; after a stay of two months, his wife became pregnant,” the leaked file said.
Mojtaba’s wife and teenage son, Mohammad Bagher, reportedly died in the airstrike that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He had another son and a daughter.
In the interview, the US president added he did “very well with the gay vote” and that he even “played the gay national anthem” — the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” — as his campaign anthem.
“No Republican has ever gotten the gay vote like I did, and I’m very proud of it,” he said. “I think it’s great. Perhaps it’s because I’m from New York City, I don’t know but, but the gay national anthem was my walk-off,” he said.