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"Americans are being warned of foreign influence. How about the extensive Israeli campaign to bamboozle the US administration into an unwinnable war of choice?"
President Donald Trump on Thursday accused the Chinese government of trying to meddle in US elections in a lengthy speech rattling off baseless conspiracy theories about his 2020 loss to former President Joe Biden.
However, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi on Friday said that the president was overlooking a foreign influence campaign being carried out by one of his longtime allies.
In a social media post, the Iranian diplomat pointed to a report in Time about Brad Parscale, Trump's former campaign manager, who is now a registered foreign agent of Israel conducting influence operations on behalf of its government.
"Americans are being warned of foreign influence," wrote Araghchi. "How about the extensive Israeli campaign to bamboozle the US administration into an unwinnable war of choice? Even worse: Israel is using US taxpayer dollars to silence any US critics. It will all soon unravel."
According to Time, Parscale's Clock Tower X firm last year signed an agreement to produce content across multiple platforms aimed at shoring up support for Israel among young US conservatives.
An anonymous Israeli Foreign Ministry official told Time that Parscale "presented himself as uniquely positioned to improve Israel’s reputation among young conservatives," while stressing "his experience at the helm of Trump’s political operation, with a grasp of both the architecture of the modern internet and the political movement Trump had built" during his three runs for the presidency.
"Three people familiar with the campaign describe a messaging operation run through a network of interconnected firms overseen by Parscale or other firms he owns or created," reported Time. "Through private group chats, they say, conservative influencers receive suggested language for posts on social media sites such as X, Instagram and TikTok. They were then compensated based on the impressions and engagement their content generated."
One Trump official told Time they suspected that Parscale was also behind an operation aimed at undermining the president's efforts to broker a deal to end his illegal war with Iran.
Parscale, however, denied pushing messages that attacked the deal shortly after its announcement.
"I have never funded, organized, or participated in any effort to undermine President Trump—ever—including his [memorandum of understanding] or ceasefire proposal," the former Trump 2020 campaign manager told the magazine. "The claim that I am coordinating an effort to prolong the war is completely false."