The Iranian press’ interest in the first debate between the Republican candidate for US president, Donald Trump, and his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, was clear in Iran’s print media on Sept. 28. Analysis and opinions of the two presidential candidates, who battled it out at Hofstra University in New York on Sept. 26, was made all the more impassioned by the fact that Iran had suddenly found itself in the middle of the battlefield.
Javan Online, the daily newspaper close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, ran an article Sept. 27 titled “The Iranophobia race.” Kayhan daily, whose editor is appointed by the country’s supreme leader, called the debate “a contest in Iranophobia” in which “Trump threatened to attack Iran and Clinton continued to stress the political and economic pressures against Iran.” The hard-line Kayhan, one of the loudest critics of Iran’s nascent diplomatic relations with the United States and the nuclear deal, failed to mention Clinton's defense of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’s (JCPOA) diplomatic approach. The JCPOA was signed in July 2015 between Iran and six world powers.