By Dana Bash, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump told CNN Friday that Iran’s leadership has been “neutered” and that he’s looking for new leadership that will treat the United States and Israel well, even if that’s a religious leader and it’s not a democratic state.
“Iran is not the same country it was a week ago,” he told CNN in a brief phone interview. “A week ago they were powerful, and now they’ve been indeed neutered.”
He expressed confidence in the ease of picking a new leader — which he’s said he must be involved in — and again compared the mission to Venezuela, where the US captured Nicolás Maduro earlier this year and put his deputy in power.
“It’s gonna work very easily. It’s going to work like did in Venezuela. We have a wonderful leader there. She’s going a fantastic job. And it’s going go work Iike in Venezuela,” he said, referring to acting president Delcy Rodriguez.
Trump also said he was open to having a religious leader in Iran. “Well I may be yeah, I mean, it depends on who the person is. I don’t mind religious leaders. I deal with a lot of religious leaders and they are fantastic,” he said.
And pressed on if he is insisting there needs to be a democratic state, Trump told CNN, “No, I’m saying there has to be a leader that’s going be fair and just. Do a great job. Treat the United States and Israel well, and treat the other countries in the Middle East — they’re all our partners.”
He went on to tout his relationship with those countries in the Middle East, claiming they’re “fighting for us.”
“And I became very friendly with all those countries. That’s why they’re all fighting for us. Before I got involved, we didn’t even speak to UAE and Saudi Arabia. You know, (President Joe) Biden shut out. Biden and (President Barack) Obama shut Saudi Arabia, UAE Qatar, he shut them all out. They were all going to go to China, and I got involved in very short period of time that became my friends,” Trump said.
And while the president praised the US operation against Iran — saying it’s a “12, maybe 15 on the scale of 10” — he suggested he wasn’t worried about rising gas prices.
“That’s all right. It’ll be short term time. It’ll go way down very quickly,” he said, while dismissing that prices are up significantly and saying he’s “already figured out” the Strait of Hormuz.
“We’ve knocked their Navy because, you know, when you knock out the Navy, they can’t do what they wanted to be able to do. The Navy is almost, we just hit about the 25 mark. Can you imagine that? Big ones — 25 ships are down,” he said.
Trump suggests Cuba will soon ‘fall’
Trump separately told CNN that Cuba “is going to fall pretty soon.”
“Cuba is gonna fall pretty soon, by the way, unrelated, but Cuba is gonna fall too. They want to make a deal so badly,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash in a phone interview when touting US military success in his second term.
“They want to make a deal, and so I’m going to put Marco (Rubio) over there and we’ll see how that works out. We’re really focused on this one right now. We’ve got plenty of time, but Cuba’s ready — after 50 years,” he added.
“I’ve been watching it for 50 years, and it’s fallen right into my lap because of me, it’s fallen, but it’s nevertheless fallen right into the lap. And we’re doing very well,” he continued.
A day earlier, Trump said at the White House that it’s only a “question of time” before American Cubans can return to their home country, appearing to say that’s next on the administration’s agenda after the ongoing war with Iran.
“He’s doing some job, and your next one is going to be, we want to do that special Cuba,” Trump said referring to his secretary of state. “He’s waiting. But he says, ‘Let’s get this one finished first.’ We could do them all at the same time, but bad things happen. If you watch countries over the years, you do them all too fast, bad things happen. We’re not going to let anything bad happen to this country.”
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