Mohammad Rasouli took the stage at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's funeral in Tehran on Sunday, looked out at hundreds of thousands of mourners, and asked a question: "Why is the most bastard man in the world still alive?" He was talking about President Trump.
The crowd didn't gasp. They cheered.
Khamenei, Iran's 86-year-old Supreme Leader, was killed on February 28 in an airstrike during the opening moments of the Iran war. His funeral, delayed for months by the ongoing conflict, finally took place on July 5 — the day after America celebrated its 250th anniversary. The timing tells you everything about how the regime thinks.
Rasouli's performance wasn't some rogue moment. It was part of an internationally broadcast funeral ceremony, covered by the Associated Press, with reporters Nasser Karimi and Jon Gambrell filing from Tehran and Dubai respectively. This wasn't a guy mumbling into a hot mic at a bar. This was a performer, on a stage, at a state funeral, calling for the assassination of a sitting American president. On camera. To applause.
The crowd followed Rasouli's lead with chants of "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" — the two greatest hits of the Iranian regime's playlist, dusted off for every occasion from funerals to Friday prayers.
Meanwhile, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the late Supreme Leader's son, has assumed power as the new Supreme Leader. The regime continues leveraging its control of the Strait of Hormuz as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the United States. So the leadership changed and absolutely nothing changed.
Now, think about the last four years of American media coverage. Every conservative rally gets dissected for "dangerous rhetoric." Every Trump speech gets run through a tone analyzer. Every Republican who raises a voice gets a CNN chyron about "threats to democracy." We had an entire impeachment hearing built around the idea that words have consequences.
But a state-sponsored performer openly calling for the death of a U.S. president at an official government funeral? That's just how they grieve over there, apparently. The same commentators who insisted a red hat was a symbol of violence will treat this as a cultural expression. Different norms. Who are we to judge.
The Iranian regime doesn't hide what it wants. It never has. It chants it in the streets, prints it on missiles, and now performs it at funerals. The question was never whether they'd say it. The question is why half of Washington keeps pretending they didn't.
As Newsmax reported, the funeral drew hundreds of thousands to Tehran — a regime flexing its ability to mobilize even after losing its most powerful figure. They buried the man and immediately started auditioning for the next war.
The 250th anniversary of the American founding was Saturday. The call for the American president's murder was Sunday. One country celebrated what it built. The other celebrated what it wants to destroy.