Iranian officials have picked the next supreme leader — a successor to slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who will “be hated by the enemy” — as Iran’s foreign minister insisted Sunday no outsider would be allowed to “interfere” with the process in an apparent dig at President Trump.

Iran’s Assembly of Experts is expected to name the Islamic Republic’s new leader “within one day,” according to local outlets, with members of the clerical body suggesting it would be  Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei. 

“Even the Great Satan (US) has mentioned his name,” said senior cleric Heidari Alekasir, referencing Trump’s rejection of the younger Khamenei as “unacceptable.”  

News that Iran’s Assembly of Experts reached a consensus on Khamenei’s successor was revealed by its member Ayatollah Mohammad-Mahdi Mirbagheri.

Meanwhile, Trump has maintained that he must approve of Iran’s next leader if they want to last long, warning the Assembly of Experts that Mojtaba, 56, will not be recognized by the US. 

“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump told Axios as he slammed Mojtaba as “a lightweight.” 

Prior to his death in the US and Israeli strikes on Iran that kicked off late last month, Khamenei had been one of the world’s longest-serving dictators, having held his position since 1989. The late 86-year-old had overseen notoriously brutal oppression in Iran, including the crackdown on protesters earlier this year that killed thousands. 

Alekasir suggested Trump’s rejection of the candidate was one of his biggest selling points, as Khamenei had allegedly instructed the senior clerics to pick a successor hated by the West rather than praised by it. 

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi pumped the brakes on rumors that Khamenei’s son will take the reins, claiming that a decision by the assembly of experts hasn’t officially been made, and “nobody knows” who will become Tehran’s next supreme leader just yet. 

“Nobody knows. Actually, there are lots of rumors around,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. “But you know, we have to wait for the Assembly of Experts to convene and vote for the new supreme leader.”

Araghchi also hit back at Trump’s insistence that he has a say in who will take over Iran as the US president seeks an arrangement that mirrors the situation in Venezuela. 

“We allow nobody to interfere in our domestic affairs,” Araghchi told “Meet the Press.” “This is up to the Iranian people to elect their new leader.”

“It’s only the business of the Iranian people, and nobody else’s business.”

Mojtaba was not in Tehran when his father was killed by Israeli airstrikes at the start of the war on Feb. 28, Iranian sources told Reuters.  

Despite not being in the capital, Israeli officials believe Mojtaba was injured by one of the early strikes of the war, according to the Times of Israel. 

The younger Khamenei has close ties to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards and is among the most influential members in the Islamic Republic’s clerical establishments. 

While he has not previously held any government position in the regime, he has worked with his father to maintain the status quo in Iran. 

In the 2000s, he was accused of rigging presidential elections to ensure the appointment of conservative regime allies, and he was even sanctioned by the US in 2019 for working to “advance his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives.”

Mojtaba was also among the targets of criticism by protesters during the outrage over Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody in 2022, which were the largest modern protests in the country prior to the demonstrations last January.

The Assembly of Experts’ Secretariat Ayatollah Hashem Hosseini Bushehri is expected to formally announce Khamenei’s successor soon. 

The group is currently debating whether they would need to meet in person to issue their final decision, according to Iranian media.