One of the regime's more influential propagandists has been quietly operating from the safety of suburban Southern California — all while reportedly collecting a fat monthly paycheck from Tehran.
Meysam Zamanabadi, a longtime close advisor to Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has deep ties to the Iranian regime stretching back to his days as Tehran mayor and head of law enforcement, has been living in Glendora, California, for nearly a decade.
Zamanabadi manages Ghalibaf’s English-language X account, churning out slick, meme-heavy anti-American content aimed squarely at impressionable—nay, gullible—U.S. audiences.
Is it any wonder that Democrat politicians are so easily duped by blatant Iranian propaganda on social media, when certain operations are generating from American soil, by operatives who speak English and post using emojis and Gen Z memes?
Zamanabadi, according to an analysis by Iranwire, is a "pivotal advisor" for Ghalibaf, who served time as Police Chief and Mayor of Tehran, and continues to rake in a not-unhealthy $11,000 per month from the Iranians.
Financial audits conducted by the Tehran City Council in 2017 revealed that even after moving to America, he received a monthly sum of 40 million Tomans (equivalent to approximately $11,000 at the time). This was paid in foreign currency through an exchange office in Ferdowsi Square via an individual named Hesamuddin Sahami, the then technical director of Tamashagar magazine.
WAR: Iran's English-language propaganda operation is headquartered in Glendale, California. Meysam Zamanabadi has managed Iranian Parliament social media for years from US soil. He advises the Parliament Speaker directly. The Islamic Republic has been running its wartime… pic.twitter.com/qd7MYiqkGn
— @amuse (@amuse) April 13, 2026
READ MORE: Hot Takes: Chris Murphy Appears to Openly Cheer Iran on X, and His Explainer Only Makes It Worse
Zamanabadi is helping to fire off material for Ghalibaf's X account, clearly aimed at an American audience to sway public opinion on behalf of the Iranian regime. As evidenced by the use of English-language tweets, memes, hashtags, and emojis.
Iranwire notes one such situation during the war with Iran, in which the California-based propagandist gloated that President Trump was the “loser of the war,” painted the United States as collapsing economically, and boasted that the Islamic Republic’s new leadership had brought both America and Israel to their knees.
It gets even more absurd. Zamanabadi reportedly moonlights as a media analyst at Ad Fontes Media, a Colorado-based media watchdog that rates U.S. news outlets for “bias.”
Via the Washington Free Beacon:
A former paid scribe for an Iranian state-affiliated newspaper now works for a U.S. media watchdog group known for producing a "media bias" chart that rates liberal outlets as more reliable than conservative ones.
This kind of slick, English-language influence operation proved incomprehensibly effective during the recent conflict. When Iranian accounts pushed claims that dozens of “shadow fleet” tankers had breezed past the U.S. naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, prominent voices on the American left swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
The danger isn’t just that an Iranian regime propagandist is living comfortably in Glendora while drawing a paycheck from Tehran — it’s that his long-term immersion in American culture gives him insight into exactly how to craft propaganda that resonates with Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers on the left.
Zamanabadi knows precisely which buttons to push to get gullible Democrats echoing regime talking points in real time. Allowing regime agents to operate freely on U.S. soil will allow Tehran to continue exploiting domestic political divisions to the detriment of America.
He is an active agent of a hostile foreign government and should be deported — or at a minimum, have his immigration status immediately reviewed, revoked if he holds a green card or visa, and removed from the United States.
Editor's Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
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