The central question is whether President Trump actually described Iran as "strong, rational, smart, nice to deal with, and not radicalized."
NBC News reported on June 7, 2026 that Trump told Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker that he is finding Iran's new leadership to be "more rational, very smart." In the same interview, Trump explicitly said of the Iranians: "Because they're strong. They're proud." These remarks came after Israel and the United States killed former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and many of his lieutenants, with his son Mojtaba Khamenei now part of the deal-approval process. Trump favorably compared the new supreme leader to his father, calling him "more rational."
A Fox News video segment from June 16, 2026 carries the headline "Trump calls new Iranian leaders 'rational,' expert warns of internal divisions," and the accompanying description says Trump "suggests that new Iranian leaders are more 'rational' and less 'radicalized.'"
Taken together, the reporting confirms that Trump has, in recent days and weeks, publicly characterized Iran's post-Khamenei leadership as rational and smart, said Iran itself is strong, and expressed the view that the new leaders are less radicalized than their predecessors. The social-media quote attributed to Trump is consistent in substance with his documented public statements, even if the precise phrasing — particularly "nice to deal with" — could not be located in a verbatim transcript of a single speech. The claim's central meaning is therefore substantially accurate, though the exact sentence as quoted may be a composite or paraphrase rather than a word-for-word utterance.
Readers should note that Trump's comments are part of an ongoing negotiating track to end a three-month-old war with Iran, and that several commentators and officials quoted in the same reporting cycle have pushed back on the characterization, urging caution about trusting Tehran.
