WASHINGTON — President Trump has revealed that the US knows “exactly” where Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is hiding but is letting him live “for now,” as Israeli and US sources say the commander-in-chief is heavily weighing whether to conduct military strikes on Tehran’s nuclear facilities.
And the world was waiting on his decision Tuesday.
Trump, who ran three times for president on an “America First” platform of opposing costly Mideast quagmires, openly threatened Tehran and called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” following Israel’s punishing bombardment of the country’s military and nuclear infrastructure.
“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” Trump truthed. “He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.”
“But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
He convened an 80-minute meeting with his top national security officials in the West Wing’s Situation Room on Tuesday a little after 2 p.m. to weigh the legacy-defining decision.
But, “as always, President Trump alone will make the call,” a source close to the Pentagon said Tuesday.
The source speculated that there’s an 80% chance the president would launch airstrikes to support Israel.
Early Tuesday morning the president told reporters he was “not too much in the mood to negotiate” and was seeking a “real end” to the Iran-Israel conflict.
The Situation Room meeting featured Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard.
A source familiar with Trump’s deliberations said he “likes people who know what they’re talking about and are honest with him.”
Additional sources in both the US and Israel told The Post they suspect that the president will act militarily — pushing past an outcry from some of his populist movement’s leading figures who doubt the wisdom of doing so.
Similarly, an Israeli official said Trump’s positioning of military assets in the region suggests the US is willing to help Israel destroy Iran’s nuclear sites.
Another Israeli source told The Post that Israel and the US has “reached a strategic window of opportunity” — where the parties have both the proper intelligence and weapons capabilities to wipe out Iran’s nuclear program.
The precise conversation within the Situation Room was unclear, though key players have well-known views on Iran and regional military operations.
Vance and Gabbard in particular are associated with the non-interventionist wing of Trump’s political base — with the VP putting up internal resistance to a decision earlier this year to bomb Iran-backed Houthi fighters in Yemen.
Gabbard, a former Hawaii congresswoman, left the Democratic Party and backed Trump in last year’s election largely over foreign policy.
A source said Gabbard has been at the White House and in the Situation Room consistently since the conflict started on June 13 — after reportedly missing a June 8 gathering at Camp David where Trump was informed that Israel’s attack on Iran was imminent.
Gabbard said in March that Iran wasn’t close to developing a nuclear bomb — contradicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims.
Read the latest on the conflict between Israel and Iran
Hegseth and Rubio are more firmly tied with the Republican Party’s hawkish wing.
They were joined at the Situation Room meeting by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Mideast special envoy, who led efforts in recent weeks to force Tehran to strike a deal to avoid a looming Israeli attack.
Although Trump floated hours earlier delegating Witkoff and Vance to negotiate with Iran, the Situation Room meeting ended with no plans for any such diplomacy, The Post confirmed.
While the president initially vetoed Israel’s plan over the weekend to take out Khamenei, both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have indicated that the nations are nearly done waiting for Tehran to give up its nuclear program.
Trump ran for office in three general elections on a platform of keeping the US military out of Mideast quagmires — but has at moments taken limited military action in the region, including in 2020 ordering an airstrike to assassinate Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Iraq.
The US military has guided 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs that could more effectively collapse underground nuclear facilities — averting a potential incomplete demolition of sites by Israel, which has been dropping 2,000-pound bombs sourced from America.
Netayahu on Monday night told ABC News that he was not ruling out killing Khamenei, 86, if necessary.
“We are doing what we need to do,” the prime minister said.
Khamenei has served as Iran’s supreme leader since 1989 following the death of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini, who established the country’s theocratic regime after Iran’s US-allied shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled in 1979.
Opponents of the Iranian government described its feckless defense against Israel as evidence that the regime was on the verge of collapse.
Reza Pahlavi, the last shah’s 64-year-old son, on Tuesday called on Iranians to stage an uprising to topple the government.
“The Islamic Republic has reached its end and is in the process of collapsing. Khamenei, like a frightened rat, has gone into hiding underground and has lost control of the situation,” Pahlavi claimed in a Persian-language video posted to X.
“The regime’s apparatus of repression is falling apart. All it takes now is a nationwide uprising to put an end to this nightmare once and for all. Now is the time to rise; the time to reclaim Iran.”
Pahlavi claimed that “Iran will not descend into civil war or instability. We have a plan for Iran’s future and its flourishing. We are prepared for the first hundred days after the fall for the transitional period for the establishment of a national and democratic government.”
Israel on Monday secured air superiority over Tehran, and Trump on Tuesday said “we” now have control over Iran’s entire airspace — seemingly indicating that the US and Israel are standing strongly together.
“We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran. Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured ‘stuff.’”
“Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.”
