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Iranian schoolgirls better off dead than ‘in a burqa’, says MAGA’s Matt Schlapp
Conservative lobbyist Matt Schlapp was blasted by critics for his comment about the schoolgirls killed in Iran
www.the-independent.com
A conservative lobbyist has sparked outrage for suggesting that the Iranian schoolgirls killed in airstrikes this week amid the joint U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign are better off dead than being “alive in a burqa.”
Matt Schlapp, who heads up the Conservative Union advocacy group, which runs the Conservative Political Action Conference, made the remark Wednesday night on Piers Morgan’s Uncensored during a heated debate.
A missile strike on the war’s first day, Saturday, killed 175 children and staff at an elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, according to the non-profit humanitarian group Iranian Red Crescent Society. Iran has pointed the finger at the U.S. and Israel, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the administration was “investigating.”
Journalist Peter Beinart, the editor-at-large at Jewish Currents, told Morgan that the U.S. and Israel were to blame even if an Iranian missile was responsible for the attack on the school.
“We know that if the U.S. and Israel had not attacked a country that poses no serious threat to them – Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons, America has thousands – that those girls would be alive,” Beinart said.
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Matt Schlapp (far right) sparked outrage for suggesting that the Iranian schoolgirls killed in airstrikes this week in the joint U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign are better off dead than being ‘alive in a burqa’ (Piers Morgan Uncensored)
“They’d be alive in a burqa,” Schlapp interjected before he was cut off by Morgan, who spoke over him. “This is…a barbaric society,” Schlapp said, before Morgan told him to “hang on.”
A few minutes later, Morgan invited Schlapp back to the conversation.
“It's hypocritical to say that these attacks harmed women and children when those women and children, the young girls that you reference, would be...live a life in a barbaric, unequal society behind a burqa, with no ability to make career choices,” Schlapp said.
“So just kill them?” challenged Cenk Uygur, a Turkish-American commentator who was also on the panel.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying either,” said Schlapp.
“That is what you said,” Uygur replied, before Schlapp went on to defend President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Iran.
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Schlapp, who regularly appears on right-wing network Newsmax, is married to former Trump White House staffer Mercedes Schlapp and is a fierce supporter of President Donald Trump (Getty)
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Iran has pointed the finger at the U.S. and Israel for the strike on the elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, that killed 175 children and staff (AP)
Schlapp, who regularly appears on right-wing network Newsmax, is married to former Trump White House staffer Mercedes Schlapp and is a fierce supporter of Trump.
Critics blasted the MAGA firebrand for the comment and highlighted his “basic ignorance” because women and girls in Iran are not required to wear a burqa in Iran, though under the regime’s strict laws, they are required to wear a hijab and clothing must cover most of the body.
“For a man who claims to understand so much about Iran, Matt Schlapp sure gets a lot wrong,” the journalist Yashar Ali commented in a post on X. “Also, schoolgirls do not wear burqas in Iran. They are forced to wear a headscarf and a school uniform with a long coat (often called a manteau), sometimes they wear a maghnaeh.”
“That system is oppressive and imposed by the regime — but confusing Iran with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan shows a basic ignorance about the country Matt claims to be lecturing the world about,” Ali added.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was questioned about the missile strike on the school at a Wednesday briefing, and asked if the U.S. had any involvement. “Not that we know of,” Leavitt responded. “The Department of War is investigating this matter.”
At a Pentagon briefing Wednesday morning, Hegseth briefly answered a question from a reporter on the strike before moving on. “All I know is we’re investigating that,” Hegseth said. “We of course never target civilian targets, but we’re taking a look and investigating that.”
The war in Iran has split Trump’s MAGA base, with prominent figures such as Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly railing against the joint military operation with Israel.
But Trump pushed back and said he did not believe that the opinions of Carlson and Kelly are shared by his base. “I think that MAGA is Trump,” he said. “MAGA’s not the other two.”
