Politics | NPR News

How Iranians are responding to the appointment of their new supreme leader

WBUR | By Here & Now Newsroom

Published March 9, 2026 at 10:52 AM CDT

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A woman holds posters of Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, right, the successor to his late father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, left, as supreme leader, during a rally supporting him in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 9, 2026. (Vahid Salemi/AP)

Iran’s Assembly of Experts has defied President Trump by appointing Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father as supreme leader.

Here & Now‘s Peter O’Dowd speaks with Negar Mortazavi, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, about how the Iranian public is responding to Khamenei and why he’s seen as unacceptable to Trump and Israeli leadership.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.