Iran mocks President Trump with war propaganda: NPR

TEL AVIV, Israel — A new front has opened in the war with Iran, a virtual front. Along with drones and missiles, Iran is now launching something else: memes. President Trump is a favorite target of the administration.

War propaganda is as old as conflict itself, but in 2026 it is moving faster, wider in scope, and hitting harder than ever before. Since the war began, Iranian communications equipment has rapidly zeroed in on President Trump, making him the central target of a massive modern information campaign.

In one video, Iran depicts an animated Lego-style multiverse of Iranian soldiers retaliating for attacks by miniature Lego versions of President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

AI-generated missiles rain down across the Middle East, sending blocky Lego figures scrambling from an Orthodox Jewish man in Israel to the emir of Saudi Arabia in the Gulf.

Other videos lean toward the absurd. A character resembling Trump appears as a Teletubby in an Stars and Stripes-themed costume, sitting in the Oval Office and playing with a toy fighter jet over a map of the Middle East.

Trolling President Trump has become the Iranian regime’s new pastime. And it’s not just limited to social media. Iran’s huge state media organization has adopted the same tone in its official communications, much of it in English.

In one example, Iranian Revolutionary Guards spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaghari poignantly recited Trump’s own trademark phrase: “Hey, Trump, you’re fired. You know this sentence very well. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.”

Often the message goes further. Mr. Zolfagali and others have repeatedly cited the president’s ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his infamous ties to the island in harsh, dark ways. “Remembrances of the Fallen Islanders: The land and maps of the world are in our hands.”

Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s National Security Council, made similar provocations linked to Epstein before he was assassinated in a targeted Israeli airstrike last week.

This wave of content didn’t come out of nowhere. The move accelerated shortly after the White House released a controversial media mashup a month ago that mixed highlights of NFL tackles with footage of missile strikes on Iran.

When NPR asked the White House for comment on accusations that President Trump sets the tone of global discourse, White House press secretary Anna Kelly responded, “Why is NPR writing nonsense about Iran’s social media strategy? NPR should introspect why it is calling terrorist regime propaganda ‘trolls.'”

Experts say what appears to be a chaotic internet culture is part of a deeper change.

Trolling has existed in grassroots online spaces for more than 15 years, said Whitney Phillips, a media ethics professor at the University of Oregon. But the rise of Trump has moved it to the center of world politics, she says.

“This is the language that President Trump speaks, and this is the language that world leaders are speaking to him now.”

The risk, analysts say, is that the picture begins to overshadow reality. The US-Israel war on Iran has sparked an escalation of regional conflict, with Iran retaliating against Israel and its Gulf neighbors.

The Pentagon has ordered thousands of additional U.S. troops to be sent to the Middle East, raising the possibility of further escalation on the ground. The fighting has disrupted global markets, soaring energy prices and disrupting supply chains around the world.

Emerson Brooking of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Institute says war itself is increasingly being absorbed into the attention economy. “This is a very strange and disconcerting experience that many of us are having right now, where war is becoming commodified and becoming part of the attention economy.”

Brooking said Iranian propaganda is not new, but its focus on provoking President Trump allows it to reach U.S. audiences like never before. “Americans are not used to seeing messages directed at them from countries that the United States is bombing. This is completely new.”

Iran has long been a global propaganda pioneer and has been an early adopter of social media for decades. But recent AI-generated output seems to prioritize volume over precision, with waves of content produced rapidly and feeling designed for maximum dissemination, such as the latest Lego video set to AI-generated rap music. The video ends with a black screen and white text. “History will judge your grave mistake of attacking us, and it will not be in your favor.”

And the last line: “Thank you for your interest in this issue. Dear Iranian people.”