Trump says Iran needs new leaders

President Trump said it was time for new leadership in Iran after that country’s supreme leader called the President a criminal responsible for the deaths of protesters during the latest unrest in the country.

The comments come as the Iranian government is expressing greater confidence that it has won this clash with its opponents after cowing protestors with a bloody crackdown estimated to have left thousands dead.

In addition to the tougher tone, the Iranian government has signaled that it will gradually restore internet access after shutting it down when the protests around the country began.

“It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran,” Trump told Politico in an interview. Trump’s comments come after Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivered a defiant address Saturday in which he accused Trump of encouraging “agitators.”

He said key agitators had been detained, and the country’s semiofficial Fars news agency said protests had largely subsided. Trump denounced Khamenei and Iran in his remarks to Politico, calling him “a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people.”

“His country is the worst place to live anywhere in the world because of poor leadership,” Trump said. A spokesperson for Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations declined to comment on Trump’s remarks.

The massive crackdown on unrest has left at least 3,090 dead, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. It has also reported 22,123 arrests. Without the government’s official count, HRANA says it relies on supporters in Iran cross-checking information and that its data goes through “multiple internal checks.”

Khamenei on Saturday acknowledged for the first time that thousands had been killed, an official recognition of the death toll that was higher than a previous admission that hundreds had died.