Washington Examiner columnist Joe Concha said Sunday that Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, a recent guest on late-night television host Jon Stewart’s show, made the comedian realize “how good I have it” in the United States.
Stewart spoke with Panahi on The Daily Show on March 2, during which Panahi detailed the 20-year sentence from Iran’s regime that banned him from making films or traveling abroad. He added that Stewart would receive “execution” if his show were airing in Iran, prompting some surprise from the late-night host.
Concha said the Iranian government issued its sentence against Panahi because he was “producing propaganda against the system,” which he called “another way” of telling the truth.
“So when we hear from journalists and late night comedians about fascism in this country and their First Amendment rights being under attack, they have zero idea what they’re talking about when you have an example here in terms of what Jafar Panahi told Jon Stewart about his monologues and how they’d be treated in Iran,” Concha said on Fox News’s One Nation with Brian Kilmeade, Sunday.
Concha added that Stewart’s interview with Panahi made him see “living proof” that his First Amendment rights are “alive and well” in the U.S., regardless of who is president.
Stewart is one of many prominent voices critical of President Donald Trump’s strikes against Iran. He also mocked the conflict’s name, “Operation Epic Fury,” joking, “Is this a war, or did the Paul brothers launch another energy drink?” in reference to influencers Logan and Jake Paul.
INSISTING HE HAS IRAN ON THE ROPES, TRUMP DEMANDS ‘UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER’
The current U.S. death toll in this conflict stands at seven. War Secretary Pete Hegseth forewarned on Sunday that “there will be more casualties” as the conflict continues.
Iran’s Assembly of Experts named Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, to succeed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the country’s new supreme leader. Khamenei was killed in the airstrikes last month.