Middle East experts blast Lester Holt for not pushing back at Iranian president's 'boldfaced lies'
2025-01-20
Category: world

Middle East experts are calling out NBC’s Lester Holt after they claim he failed to challenge Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian's "bold-faced lies" during his interview aired Tuesday – including that Iran never attempted to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump. "The American media has been for a very long time way too differential and accommodating to the Islamic Republic's leadership," Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against a Nuclear Iran, said.&nbsp; The justice department announced in November that Iranian national Farhad Shakeri, 51, had been tasked by the IRGC with "providing a plan to kill President-elect Donald J. Trump."  IRAN'S PRESIDENT DENIES CLAIM THAT IRAN TRIED TO ASSASSINATE TRUMP Pezeshkian denied any Iranian involvement in the plot against Trump’s life, alleging that it was an Israeli false-flag operation meant to promote "Iranophobia." "This is another one of those schemes that Israel and other countries are designing to promote Iranophobia. ... Iran has never attempted to nor does it plan to assassinate anyone. At least as far as I know," Pezeshkian told the "Nightly News" anchor. Brodsky blasted Holt for providing Pezeshkian a "platform that’s pretty much unchallenged" where the Islamic regime president "held court" and saw little pushback from the NBC news anchor.&nbsp; "The Islamic Republic likes to exploit [US] airwaves to really shape Americans perceptions of Iran in a very distorted manner," Brodsky told Fox News Digital. Human rights activist and Israeli journalist Emily Shrader called Pezeshkian’s denial a "boldfaced lie," and pointed to a 2022 animation released on Ayatollah Khamenei’s website which shows an Iranian drone targeting Trump on his golf course. "The murderer of Soleimani and those who ordered his assassination must face retribution," the video said.  TRUMP'S NEW UKRAINE ENVOY ISSUES WARNING TO IRAN, SAYS 'MAXIMUM PRESSURE MUST BE REINSTATED' President Trump ordered a strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds&nbsp;Force while he was traveling in Baghdad on January 3, 2020.&nbsp; "I would show it to him. I would have confronted him. What about this video? Let me play this video. What do you say? What do you say to this?" Brodsky said. Shrader, a journalist herself, said that Holt had missed an opportunity to "provide a voice" to the 80 million people oppressed by the Islamic theocratic regime.&nbsp; CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP  "To see an American, you know, top journalist not doing his research and not doing his job and showing up prepared is really disappointing," Shrader said.&nbsp; NBC News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.