NewsBusters Time Machine: Trumpeting the Tears of a Tyrant

February 16th, 2019 1:30 PM

The NewsBusters Time Machine returns this week with Diane Sawyer gushing to Iran’s former President about what a softie the Holocaust denier is. Seven years ago this week, the then-Good Morning America co-host interviewed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and wondered what makes him cry. 

Sawyer swooned: 

 

 

But a number of people have already said is there anything surprising, personal about President Ahmadinejad that we didn't know? Well, it turns out, someone told me he cries a lot. That he is dramatically sentimental and sympathetic if someone comes up and expresses a personal plight. So I just asked him, are you often in tears?

Later, she really grilled the Iranian leader... about smog: 

You know, you’d think gasoline that costs 40 cents a gallon would just be great, right? That’s until you see the traffic and the smog here in Tehran. So many days the smog is so horrible you couldn’t begin to see those mountains behind me, some of the houses you couldn’t see.

(For more on this interview, go here.) If only Sawyer had waited a few years, she could have asked Ahmadinejad about football and Colin Kaepernick. He tweets about it. 

For more examples from the NewsBusters Time Machine vault, go here