Iran’s Khamenei launches blistering attack on Trump after Middle East visit
Iran’s Khamenei launches blistering attack on Trump after Middle East visit
Supreme leader calls Trump ‘a liar’ and demands destruction of Israel, hours after US president concludes regional tour
Published May 17, 2025 3:21pm EDT
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JERUSALEM – Just hours after President Donald Trump concluded his Middle East visit, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday launched a tirade against America and Israel, charging that Trump is a liar and calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.
“Trump said he wants to use power for peace. He’s lying,” wrote Khamenei on X, adding, “Some of the remarks made during the US President’s trip to the region aren’t even worth a response at all. The level of those remarks is so low that they are a source of shame for the American nation.”
Washington has designated Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism since the 1980s. The rabidly anti-Western and antisemitic ayatollah called the Jewish state—America’s key ally in the Middle East — a “cancerous tumor” that must be uprooted.
According to the Trump administration, Khamenei’s regime is the world’s leading state-sponsor of antisemitism.
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Khamenei also took aim at the Sunni Arab countries that are allied with the U.S. in the Mideast, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
“This failed model, where Arab states are told they can’t survive ten days without US support, is being imposed again. But it will collapse, and America will leave this region.”
The wily 86-year-old revolutionary Islamist said that Washington aimed to promote Sunni Arab dependency on Washington. “The US wants these countries unable to function without it — that’s the message in their behavior and their proposals.”
Khamenei also accused America of using its resources to attack the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
“The US has used its power to massacre in Gaza, to stoke war wherever possible, and to arm its mercenaries,” said Khamenei. The U.S.-designated terrorist movement, Hamas, is a strategic partner of Iran’s regime. Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, and slaughtered over 1,200 people, including many Americans.
