After Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s rebuttal speech to President Trump’s State of the Union address, PBS News Hour’s foreign policy reporter Nick Schifrin nitpicked President Trump’s claim about the carnage in Iran.
Nick Schifrin: ….the president accused Iran of working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States. That's from a defense intelligence assessment. And also the death toll, 32,000 killed in those protests, much higher than most activists believe, or at least have said publicly. Combined, clearly, Amna, trying to paint the regime in Iran as something that he could target if he decides, and, of course, that big military buildup will give him that opportunity in the days and weeks to come.
There’s an ideological point to casting doubt on the estimated number of peaceful protesters killed by the Iranian regime, given that Trump may be building up U.S. forces in the region to strike against Iran. While PBS quibbles over the American president’s numbers, there’s one national body whose death toll figures Schifrin seem to trust intimately. Schifrin has been all too eager to validate anti-Israel propaganda fatality figures from the Gaza Health Ministry -- figures approved by the terrorist group Hamas that runs Gaza.
