Iran International
President Massoud Pezeshkian’s increasingly public confrontations with Iran’s state broadcaster have exposed the limits of his authority, underscoring how one of the country’s most powerful institutions operates beyond the reach of its elected government.
The tensions erupted most visibly on Wednesday, when Pezeshkian angrily confronted the head of state television during a cabinet meeting, accusing the broadcaster of refusing to show his administration’s progress.
The exchange was being aired live before the broadcast was abruptly cut off.
During a visit to Golestan Province the following day, Pezeshkian became embroiled in a heated argument on live television with a provincial commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) over the military’s role in development projects.
This time, the cameras kept rolling. The commander looked directly into the lens and declared that the IRGC had fulfilled its duties—and that the government had not.
Together, the incidents offered a rare public glimpse into the president’s inability to control institutions that shape both policy and public perception in the Islamic Republic.
Moderate and reformist outlets have rallied to Pezeshkian’s defense, portraying the clash as a sign of the broadcaster’s unchecked power.
“For state TV, news is not the priority; controlling the narrative is,” read a commentary on Rouydad24. If the president’s message does not align with the broadcaster’s preferred narrative, the report said, “it will either ignore him or cut the broadcast.”
An editorial on Khabar Online added that the network’s decision to cut Pezeshkian’s speech reflected “a kind of intoxication with power” and an exaggerated sense of confidence.
“Even if the highest executive authority in the country takes a position against this broadcaster, it feels powerful enough to ignore it entirely,” the editorial said.
Clashes between Iranian presidents and state television are not new. Every president except Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whose brother ran the broadcaster during much of his presidency, faced friction with the organization.
Mohammad Khatami, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hassan Rouhani all had public disputes with IRIB, the Islamic Republic’s state broadcaster. Rouhani barred a former IRIB chief from cabinet meetings, while Ahmadinejad withheld the network’s allocated budget to punish its managers.
But Pezeshkian’s confrontations come at a moment of growing public dissatisfaction and economic strain, weakening his ability to assert authority. He had promised salary increases of 21% to 43% for government employees, but with inflation running at 60%, even those raises would leave workers falling behind rising prices.
At the same time, Pezeshkian has publicly acknowledged the emotional toll of recent unrest, saying he “can hardly sleep at night” after January’s bloody crackdown. Yet his government’s inability to improve economic conditions or assert control over powerful institutions has reinforced perceptions of weakness.
What much of the media avoids stating openly is that Iran’s state broadcaster answers only to the Supreme Leader. As long as he approves of its conduct, no other authority—not even the president’s—can compel it to change course.
The result is a system in which the elected president can be openly challenged, contradicted, or even silenced by unelected institutions.
