Here’s how dumb they think you are.
Some anonymous account in India posts a made-up quote. An Israeli TV channel’s English-language side hustle picks it up. The prime minister of Israel puts it in a speech. His son amplifies it. It hops the Atlantic to Fox News, where an anchor reads it on live television with a straight face, asks a retired general to analyze it like it’s real, and the general nods along. Then a United States senator quotes it on the floor of the world’s biggest megaphone as established fact.
And not one person in that entire chain, not a single one, checked whether the guy actually said it.
The quote in question was attributed to Ahmad Vahidi, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. It went like this: “As long as the United States and Israel possess nuclear weapons, we will continue working on them for our national security. If they disarm, we will disarm.” Bill Hemmer read those words on the August 6 broadcast of America’s Newsroom, then turned to General Joseph Votel, former head of Central Command, and asked whether Vahidi had “said the quiet part out loud.” Votel said he certainly did. Solemn analysis followed about the hardcore IRGC leadership and their existential worldview.
All of it. Built on. Nothing.
No speech exists. No video. No transcript. No Iranian news agency report. No Reuters, AP, or AFP filing. The Tehran Times ran an outright denial. The thing started as a post from a Hindu nationalist account in India, got laundered through Israel’s Channel 14, and came back dressed up as a “historic admission.” YNet, the Israeli outlet that actually did the reporting here, traced the whole route. Israeli security officials called it what it is: an illegal influence operation, crudely stitched together, aimed at both the Israeli public and the United States.
One official described it as “influence operation de la shmate,” a Yiddish phrase for something so badly fabricated the seams are visible if you bother to look. And nobody bothered. Not Netanyahu, who stood at Mount Herzl and declared that Vahidi had “explicitly” announced Iran’s nuclear intentions. Not the U.S. ambassador to the UN, who posted it and then quietly deleted it. Not Senator Rick Scott, who wrote on X that “Iran is proving what we’ve always known” and demanded we “NEVER allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon,” citing a quote that did not exist.
And not Fox News, which aired it as fact, brought on a general to vouch for its significance, and then, a full week later, offered this: “We’ve learned that quote was unverified and inaccurate, and we regret that error.” Regret that error. A week late and a war short.
Here’s what I keep coming back to. This war, the one this fake quote was manufactured to justify, has the support of 35 percent of the American public. Thirty-five. Gas prices are up because of Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz. We’re five months into bombing. And the people selling you this war couldn’t even be bothered to verify a quote before putting it on national television and feeding it to a senator.
They didn’t make a mistake. They ran with a story that fit the narrative, and they only stopped because somebody else did the work they wouldn’t. The quote was fake. The analysis was real. The war is still going.
I have questions for the manager.