Manouchehr Mottaki, a former Iranian foreign minister who remains a prominent figure in Iran's political establishment, praised a fatwa calling for the killing of President Donald Trump in a Persian-language television interview.
He described the religious ruling targeting both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "a brave and significant act."
Fox News reported that his daughter, Zahra Assadi Nazari, lives in New York City. Her husband, Nasser Assadi Nazari, is an Iranian diplomat serving at the permanent mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations, listed as a third counselor.
The family of a man publicly celebrating a death warrant against the sitting U.S. president enjoys the protections, comforts, and freedoms of the very country he wants to see its leader murdered.
Mottaki served as Iran's foreign minister from 2005 to 2010 under then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the interview, reviewed by Fox News Digital, he said Iran's Supreme Leader had determined that Trump was a criminal and suggested Iran's judiciary should act on that determination.
This is not some fringe cleric ranting from a basement mosque. This is a former cabinet-level official in the Iranian government, a man who represented the Islamic Republic on the world stage for five years, openly endorsing the assassination of a sitting American president.
And his son-in-law walks into the United Nations building in Manhattan every day.
Fox News Digital contacted Iran's mission to the United Nations for comment. The mission declined. Fox News Digital also requested comment from the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. No response was received by the time of publication.
There is a pattern here that deserves attention. Iran's ruling class despises America in public and enjoys it in private. The regime's officials and their families send their children to Western universities, park their relatives in Western cities, and access Western institutions, all while calling for the destruction of the West.
This is not the first time the contradiction has surfaced. In January, Emory University dismissed Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, the daughter of Iranian official Ali Larijani, from a teaching position at the university's medical school after protests over her employment.
The children of a theocratic regime that executes dissidents and oppresses women were, until very recently, teaching at American medical schools and living in American cities without a whisper of scrutiny.
The question is not complicated. If an official of a hostile foreign government praises a religious edict calling for the murder of the American president, should his daughter and her diplomat husband continue to enjoy residency in America's largest city?
The fact that the question even needs to be asked tells you how deeply unserious the international diplomatic framework has become.
The broader tension between the U.S. and Iran spilled into public view at the United Nations Security Council. Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, Saeid Iravani, sparred with U.S. envoy Mike Waltz during a session on February 28, 2026. Iravani offered this:
"I have one word only: I advise the representative of the United States to be polite."
Waltz did not take the bait. He did something better. He named the regime for what it is:
"Frankly, I'm not going to dignify this with another response, especially as this representative sits here in this body representing a regime that has killed tens of thousands of its own people and imprisoned many more simply for wanting freedom from your tyranny."
That is the only appropriate response to a government that lectures others on politeness while endorsing assassination fatwas. Iran's ambassador wants civility at the Security Council table while his country's former foreign minister celebrates a death warrant against the man sitting across from him. The audacity is almost impressive.
The United Nations has long served as a staging ground for regimes that would not survive five minutes under the principles the institution claims to uphold.
Iran sends diplomats to New York, houses their families in American neighborhoods, and grants them access to American life. In return, its political establishment openly calls for the killing of the American president.
Diplomatic norms exist for a reason. But those norms were designed for nations operating in something resembling good faith.
When a country's former foreign minister praises a fatwa against your head of state, and that man's daughter lives under the protection of your laws and your police, the arrangement has moved well past diplomacy into something closer to exploitation.
The Iranian regime understands leverage. It understands symbolism. And it understands that the West's commitment to procedural norms can be weaponized against it. Every day that Mottaki's family lives comfortably in New York while he cheers for Trump's assassination is a day the regime wins a small, quiet victory.
Iran asked America to be polite. America should ask Iran why its officials' families keep choosing to live here.
