How a Trump post sparked a wave of misinformation about Australia

Washington: When Donald Trump issued a Monday morning social media post about the plight of the Iranian women’s soccer team, he didn’t know that five of the women had already been granted visas to stay in Australia.

The US president claimed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was “making a terrible humanitarian mistake” by allowing the team to be forced back to Iran, and offered them asylum in the US if Canberra wouldn’t.

Trump was corrected in the next hour or two when he called Albanese about 2am on Tuesday, Canberra time. “He’s on it,” the US president quickly told his followers, adding that the PM was doing a good job managing a “rather delicate situation”.

No harm, no foul, as far as the two leaders were concerned. But on social media – and in some parts of the mainstream US press – Trump’s posts kicked off a deluge of information about how Australia handled the situation.

The narrative that Australia was forcing the women back to Iran against their will – and had to be talked into doing the right thing by Trump – gained traction in some social media circles, aided by premium accounts on Elon Musk’s X platform, and in some cases by friends of Trump.

In particular, they seized on footage of other Iranian players being led onto an airport bus by minders, and a photo of a woman in the window of a Qantas plane bound for Sydney from the Gold Coast.

Those images were shown to hundreds of thousands of followers by Australian internet activist Drew Pavlou, whose earlier post complaining about Australia’s inaction on the Iranian players was screenshotted and reposted by Trump’s account.

Global accounts with large followings also promoted those pictures. A UK-based account under the name Nioh Berg, who describes themselves as “possibly the most famous Iranian Jew on social media”, told their 417,000 followers that the Qantas plane photo would live in infamy.

“Suffering, torture and possibly execution awaits them for defying the regime. And Australia allowed it,” Berg posted.

By Thursday morning (Australian time), that post had amassed 1.4 million views. Another post by an account called Persian Jewess, using the same picture, had nearly 1 million views, and was amplified by high-profile hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, a friend of Trump’s.

He tagged the president and said: “Let’s help these young women by making it very costly for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to harm them. An X post from you could save their lives.”

Ackman declined to comment, though a source said he had only seen Trump’s first Truth Social missive at the time, not the follow-up.

Numerous premium accounts with large followings – based chiefly in the UK, US, Israel and elsewhere – pushed the images and video alongside misleading claims that Australia “lied” to Trump about granting asylum to the soccer players. Those posts amassed millions of views.

Tommy Robinson, a far-right, anti-Islam activist in Britain, told 1.9 million followers: “Australian leaders will send young Iranian women to their almost certain deaths by plane.”

In some cases, journalists also spread the claims. Will Kingston, an Australian-born presenter with the UK’s conservative GB News, accused NSW police of standing by while the soccer players were “falsely imprisoned”, calling it a “day of national shame for Australia”.

Several US media outlets reported on the matter through the lens of Trump’s attempted intervention. The American ABC News told readers the president had called on Australia to grant asylum to the women, “and Australia later did so”. The Washington Post reported Australia made the decision “after Trump pressure”.

Republican senator Lindsey Graham was among those who spread the misconception that Trump’s phone call prompted the government to grant asylum. The president’s request was “truly the right decision and shows a deep understanding of Iran as it currently exists”, Graham said on X. “Well done [Trump].”

In fact, the Australian government had been “preparing for this for some time”, Albanese later revealed. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke flew to Queensland and back on Sunday, then returned late on Monday to sign the paperwork.

The government wanted to make its offer of support to the athletes behind the scenes so as not to put them or their families in danger, Albanese said. He thanked the media for holding back on reporting elements of what had been a “very sensitive story”.

Seven women ultimately took up the asylum offer, though one later changed her mind.

Pavlou, who told his 243,000 followers the Iranian women’s team had been “forced back to Iran” and that “the Australian government told Trump they would protect them”, dialled back his claims when reached by phone.

He said he had not claimed Albanese lied to Trump, as others had, but was critical of the government for being “slow” to act. If the government had been more “forceful”, Pavlou said, the players might have had more time to contact their families back home in Iran, and more might have decided to stay.

“It’s not like we have diplomatic relations with Iran to protect,” he said. “What would have stopped Tony Burke from saying, ‘We will offer asylum to any members of the team if they request’?”

However, making exactly that kind of public offer could have endangered the players and their families.

Pavlou does not believe Trump actually found his post about the matter, but that it was sent to the White House by another activist. He acknowledged Trump did not cause Albanese to grant the visas, but said the president’s intervention was still a good thing as “it meant that right until the last moment there was pressure on the Australian government”.

A White House spokeswoman declined to answer questions about Trump’s Truth Social posts. Comment was also sought from Lindsey Graham’s office and Will Kingston.

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