World Outraged After Tom Barrack, U.S. Ambassador to Türkiye & Syria Envoy, Calls Journalists ‘Animals’
August 28, 2025
Businessman, lobbyist, and former Trump advisor — with deep ties to U.S. foreign policy — stood on stage and called journalists “animals.”
This is the same man who once compared a terrorist leader to George Washington. Now he thinks reporters should act “civilized” while he dehumanizes them.
Swipe to see the global outrage on social media. People are DONE with billionaires and politicians silencing the press while fueling propaganda.
#TomBarrack #JournalismMatters #FreePress #MediaFreedom #ExposeThePower
English Script:
Tom Barrack: Okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait. We’re going to have a different set of rules right? You want…Please be quiet for a moment, and I want to tell you something. The moment that this starts becoming chaotic, like animalistic poor God. So you want to know what’s happening? Act civilized, act kind, act tolerant. Because this is the problem with what’s happening in the region. So I beg you, do you think this is fun for us? Do you think this is economically beneficial for Morgan and I to be here putting up with this insanity? In cadence with your kindness, your interest, and your thoughtful questions, we’ll give you responses. If that’s not how you’d like to operate, we’re gone. Okay? Is that acceptable to everybody? Now, what are we doing? I can’t even have two minutes.
Chris Kunzler: Tom Barrack, the U.S. special envoy to Syria, referred to Lebanese journalists as animalistic. He told them that they needed to act civilized, and then proceeded to tell them that this was the reason that the Middle East is the way it is today. And this is why Edward Saeed’s concept of Orientalism remains one of the most important things to understand the Middle East to this very day. Because what Saeed argued was that Westerners who dealt with the Middle East, who created images of it in any kind of media about it, always sought to portray the Middle East as backwards, savage and un modernized as a means to justify the West’s dominance over it. And it could not be clearer that this is what Tom Barrack believes. He is a representative of the U.S. government who has the gall to refer to Lebanese people as uncivilized and animalistic, when he represents the government that has unequivocally backed Israel, whilst it has continually perpetrated war crimes and genocide against the Palestinian people and also the government who has continually interfered in Lebanese politics and supported dictators all over the region wherever they have seen fit, leading to so many people losing their lives and suffering. And the reason that this guy was even in Lebanon in the first place, is because the US is now saying that they want to make some kind of free economic zone in southern Lebanon after Israel bombed it and demolished so many houses there that he’s obviously not actually going to benefit Lebanese people, only foreign investors. But of course, we’re the civilized ones, so we’ll do whatever we want to those uncivilized, barbarous Arabs.
Hala: When Barrack insults journalists with indecent words, he’s not only offending the press, he’s offending all of us as Lebanese, with all our sects and diversity. He sees us as third-class people, as servants to him and to others. I don’t understand the way this person looks at us. But in reality, this broken image didn’t come out of nowhere at all. It came from the submissiveness of some politicians in our country, the ones who give the impression that we’re all like that. Well, no way! Who said they represent us as Lebanese? If you were in another country, like Iran, would you have dared to talk like that? Or in any other country? We are not servants. We are a people with dignity, with journalists who write with their very blood to tell the truth that you, or the people who support you, can’t say. Our people are different, our nation is different, not like the politicians you sit with. And if you think you’re strong against the press and the people, that strength unfortunately comes from our submissive and low politicians and others around you. We’re not like that, the Lebanese people aren’t like that. If they are low people, remember that their weakness doesn’t mean our weakness, and their submission doesn’t mean our submission. Every journalist who was there asking you questions is someone whose parents worked hard for him to get there, not for you to talk to them that way. And if you don’t know us, remember someone named Sayyed Hassan, you’ll know who the real Lebanese people are.
