Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says Donald Trump is pretending to support Iranians | ITV News

Iran’s supreme leader dismissed Donald Trump as a “clown”, accusing him of only pretending to care about the Iranian people as he led Friday prayers for the first time in eight years.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s sermon comes amid escalating diplomatic tensions between the two countries sparked by the assassination of Iran’s second most powerful man Qassem Soleimani in a US airstrike in Baghdad earlier this month.

Addressing a crowd of chanting supporters at the grand mosque in Tehran, the Supreme Leader also used his rare appearance at the weekly prayers to lash out at European countries, including the UK, accusing them of being in America’s pocket.

His attack comes after Britain, France and Germany this week triggered a dispute mechanism to try and bring Iran back into compliance with the unraveling 2015 nuclear agreement.

In response, Khamenei said: “These contemptible governments are waiting to bring the Iranian nation to its knees.

“America, who is your elder, your leader and your master, was not able to bring the Iranian nation to its knees. You are too small to bring the Iranian nation to its knees.”

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