Administration officials cooked up claims about Iran's new leader that reportedly cracked up President Donald Trump.
Three sources told the New York Post that intelligence indicates Mojtaba Khamenei might be gay, and they said the 79-year-old president laughed out loud when he was told about that possibility.
But four sources told Zeteo those claims were fabricated by Trump administration officials and outside allies as a psychological operation against Iran.
"The idea was to plant a public narrative about how U.S. intelligence agencies had classified information strongly indicating that Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei is gay and closeted," Zeteo reported. "Under the regime in Tehran, LGBTQ Iranians are, of course, persecuted – and during Trump’s war on Iran, his administration has sought to sow discord, chaos, and division among the Iranian people and their government."
"There is one issue, though: There is no intel, certainly no credible intel, indicating he’s gay. The idea was fabricated and pushed behind the scenes in the past several weeks by a cohort of Trump advisers, US government personnel, and MAGAworld associates," the report added.
Two people with knowledge of the matter and another two sources briefed on it told the outlet that the made-up claims have been amusing administration officials all month, and an administration official said one of their group chats is titled "gayatollah."
“We wanted to [mess with the Iranians],” one of the knowledgeable sources told Zeteo.
The White House did not respond to the outlet's request for comment by late Thursday, but Trump spoke about the topic on Fox News shortly after Zeteo emailed with the request.
“Well, they did say that, but I don’t know if it was only them,” Trump told Fox host Jesse Watters, who asked about the matter. “I think a lot of people are saying that, which puts him off to a bad start in that particular country.”
Trump then turned the topic of conversation to himself and started making false claims.
"I did very well with the gay vote," he said, inaccurately. "No Republican’s ever gotten the gay vote like I did.”

