So committed is MS NOW to the parroting of Trump-deranged talking points that the network is now enthusiastically promoting Iranian propaganda. On some shows, they’ll even “analyze” Iranian propaganda.
Watch as resident MS NOW bloviator Lawrence O’Donnell fawns over the knowledge of American culture contained within a tweet published on the account of Iran’s Speaker Ghalibaf:
WATCH: Noted MSNOW blowhard @Lawrence fawns over the American cultural fluency of a tweet published on the account of Iran's Speaker Ghalibaf, blissfully unaware that it was ghostwritten in California. Great job, everyone!
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: The most striking response to Scott… pic.twitter.com/O7xWPfgLsh— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) August 26, 2026
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: The most striking response to Scott Bessent's childish threat came from the Speaker of Iran's parliament who taught Natalie Harp and Donald Trump a thing or two today about devastatingly effective social media posting, exhibiting a fluency in American culture that no one in the Trump White House has with Iranian culture.
The speaker of Iran's parliament actually tweeted this: “Him: ‘Economic D-Day.’ Also him, five seconds later, LOL. ‘Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?’ Sir, this ain't Normandy, this is improv night and you forgot your own script.”
Leading off our discussions tonight is Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama and an MS NOW political and national security analyst. He is the author of All We Say, The Battle for American Identity: A History in 15 Speeches.Ben, please help me with this. Who are these people? Who in Iran could possibly have written that tweet? “Improv night, uh, LOL”, these, these, this is presumably someone who's never been to the United States. I mean, most, most people in the Iranian regime in their lifetimes have never been to the United States. How do they get this kind of fluency in our culture?
BEN RHODES No, because they actually spend time trying to understand their adversary, which is something that Trump clearly didn't.
First, there is the issue of O’Donnell, self-appointed expert on “devastatingly effective social media posting”, fangirling over a tweet allegedly posted by the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament. For all of O'Donnell's gushing, this is a cringe tweet. Who brings a script to improv night? Perhaps the poster's command of American culture isn't as exquisite as O'Donnell would like his viewers to believe.
It also seems evident that there is no one at MS NOW conducting such things as fact checks or basic research. Had they done so, they would have discovered that the aforementioned tweet was NOT crafted in Iran, per O’Donnell’s assertions, but in California. Per Iran Watch:
Since the onset of the U.S. and Israeli military strikes against Iran, Ghalibaf’s name has trended as a key decision-maker within the regime. Before the war, during a government rally on January 12, he echoed the rhetoric of the late Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, taunting Trump: “Come on, gambler Trump! I am your opponent. Come and see all your assets in the region destroyed.” Once the actual fighting began, however, he vanished from public view.
Yet, throughout the 39-day war, written messages on Telegram and specific tweets with a distinct tone appeared daily on his “X” account. These tweets, sometimes in English and sometimes peppered with emojis or Gen Z “memes,” addressed the American public directly, warning of economic fallout and risks to American soldiers.
Observers noted that the sophisticated English, the grasp of American societal anxieties, and the use of internet subculture suggested the work of an advisor who is fluent in English, understands the American psyche, and belongs to Iran’s “Third Generation.”
The report goes on to identify the advisor, noting his extensive background in such things as “digital media, social dynamics in the modern era, and the psychological impacts of contemporary communications on the new generation at U.S. institutions.”
O’Donnell is over here glazing Ghalibaf as if he’d fired the tweet off himself, before proceeding to go to Ben Rhodes, a propagandist in his own right who once said of the media: “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
The interview devolves into whining about Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s economic actions against the Iranian regime. Rhodes, AKA “Hamas”, should’ve sat this one out given his role in propping up the mad mullahs.
O’Donnell would eventually repeat his praise of Ghalibaf’s tweetmaking abilities. When it comes to performing Resistance™, any narrative will work over at MS NOW- no matter if it is unproven, disproven or in this case very easily debunked.
Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned interview as aired on MS NOW’s The Last Word, on Tuesday, August 25th, 2026:
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: The most striking response to Scott Bessent's childish threat came from the Speaker of Iran's parliament who taught Natalie Harp and Donald Trump a thing or two today about devastatingly effective social media posting, exhibiting a fluency in American culture that no one in the Trump White House has with Iranian culture.The speaker of Iran's parliament actually tweeted this: “Him: ‘Economic D-Day.’ Also him, five seconds later, LOL. ‘Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?’ Sir, this ain't Normandy, this is improv night and you forgot your own script.”Leading off our discussions tonight is Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama and an MS NOW political and national security analyst. He is the author of All We Say, The Battle for American Identity: A History in 15 Speeches.Ben, please help me with this. Who are these people? Who in Iran could possibly have written that tweet? “Improv night, uh, LOL”, these, these, this is presumably someone who's never been to the United States. I mean, most, most people in the Iranian regime in their lifetimes have never been to the United States. How do they get this kind of fluency in our culture?
BEN RHODES No, because they actually spend time trying to understand their adversary, which is something that Trump clearly didn't. I mean, if you connect the different pieces of what you just went through, Lawrence, it's clear that Donald Trump never spent any time speculating about what Iran might do in response to his war. I've been in war games, in part because Bibi Netanyahu made the same presentation to us as he made to Donald Trump about a war in Iran. And as Tulsi Gabbard and her intelligence community suggested to Trump, what we found in those war games is they would close the Strait of Hormuz. They would have a more radical regime after a U.S. attack than before it. it. The Iranians study us. Trump did not spend the time studying them. And that is why- and that is why, in part, we are in the predicament we're in, in which he cannot get himself out of the crisis that he's created. I mean, the only thing that we're trying to accomplish that I can tell in the war right now is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz that was open before the war began. If ever there was a sign of failure in war, it's that. There's no other objective that is even in reach for Donald Trump. And he's getting mocked by the officials in the Iranian government because of it.
O'DONNELL: So the Treasury Secretary, in an attempt to defeat one country, Iran, says that his threat is to blow up the worldwide financial system. That includes the United States, that includes Europe, that includes South America, that includes Asia. It's the world he's talking about blowing up. And one of the things that's so ridiculous about that is as he describes it, he's issuing the threat and as he describes it, you can just tell they're never going to do that. Isn't he describing a threat that he cannot possibly follow through on?
RHODES: Yes, and a couple of things about this, Lawrence. First of all, the sanctions they did announce on Iran are like the sanctions that would be issued on Iran on a normal Tuesday for the last 10 years. They designated a few ships and individuals. I mean, this was not in any way some new front in the economic warfare against Iran. I want to say something else, though. This is defensive because think about what D-Day represents. tens of thousands of Americans getting on small boats and going across the English Channel and storming beaches into Nazi gunfire to rest back control the European continent from fascism. Scott Bessent is associating himself with those men because he announced some poultry sanctions on Iran and made threats that he can't keep.
I mean, so first of all, we should reclaim D-Day from people like Scott Bessent who clearly don't understand the scale of the sacrifice that went into it. But second of all, Yes, if he were to actually go through with these threats and sanction Chinese banks for their purchases of Iranian oil, the entire global economy would collapse because you can't cut off China or in India and several other countries, Turkey, from the entire global economy without setting off a chain reaction that would devastate the American and global economy. Scott Bessent knows that. So he knows that all he's engaged in is a pretty weak public relations exercise to make the Trump administration look tough at a time in which they're being humiliated. And that's all that's happening.
O’DONNELL: And that's what makes the Iranian response on social media so effective, completely cutting the thing down in a couple of comic lines written in Iran. This- didn't Bessent just walk, in effect, walk right into that Iranian tweet?
RHODES: He did. And the rest of the world sees it that way. And this is what the Iranian regime is repugnant. They do horrible things. They also know that Scott Bessent has no cards to play. And they know that, frankly, the rest of the world doesn't really support what the United States is doing. And so what's very strange about watching this, Lawrence, is that all that talk about economic D-Day and all these things, that's designed for kind of Trump's right-wing media and his base. Nobody else in the world buys it anymore. I mean, part of what we're living through with the Iran war and a lot of things are happening in the Trump administration right now is that nobody beyond his most diehard supporters, the 30% of the people that will stick with him, actually pay any attention to this anymore. The Iranians are shrugging it off. The rest of the world doesn't believe it. Most Americans think this is a disaster. They're only talking to themselves. And that's dangerous when you're talking about things like a war that is actually causing great disruptions to the global economy and risks to American service members. And they don't seem to care about that. They only seem to care about the next talking point that will get them through the next week.
O'DONNELL: And they're losing Trump voters. We're going to hear from a Trump voter in the next segment, uh, who is off the Trump wagon as he puts it because of this kind of thing. Ben Rhodes, thank you very much for starting us off tonight.
RHODES: Thanks, Lawrence.
