Chris Murphy Backtracks on 'Sarcasm' Cheering On Iran, But This Isn't The First Time His Reprehensible Words Have Come Back to Haunt Him
We all know who the front-runners are for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028 — Newsom, AOC, Harris redux, Buttigieg, Pritzker, that bald guy who likes flirting with sedition and was once an astronaut.
That’s not a “deep bench,” as pundits too prone to sports metaphors like to put it, which means there will be plenty of minor candidates that will litter the field for at least a little while to see if they catch on.
One of them is almost certainly Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, who’s been busy since the early morning hours of Nov. 6, 2024 — when it became clear that we weren’t going to have a Momala-in-chief — trying to convince Democratic voters outside of the Northeast that he really exists and actually holds that position and isn’t just some fake senator your asinine political wonk friend drops into a conversation to prove you don’t know your stuff.
What does he stand for? What do you want him to stand for? He doesn’t have any especial substantive accomplishments in the upper chamber since getting elected to his seat in 2012, and the rest of his political career is similarly undistinguished. But that’s never stopped anyone looking for the Democratic nomination in 2028 (see: virtually every name I checked in the first paragraph), and if someone who gets attention is what you want, someone who gets attention is what you’ll get, American left.
Unfortunately, this has led to a sequence of events in which 1) Murphy pretended to root for Iran against the United States in the current Middle East conflict, 2) got called out for it, and 3) said his words were obvious “sarcasm” and shouldn’t be taken at face value.
This would be bad enough if it were the first time Murphy’s been through the I-didn’t-mean-it-that-way rodeo. Unfortunately, he’s ridden the bull of dim word choice at inopportune times before — and just seven months ago, days before the assassination of Charlie Kirk, where his poor word choice indicated he wouldn’t mind seeing some, you know, direct action taken against the right. Hint hint.
But the Iran thing, first. Here’s Murphy reposting Tehran-backed propaganda claiming that “26 shadow fleet vessels bypass US blockade” of Iranian ports.
Murphy had one word for this: “awesome.”
awesome https://t.co/nRj1trI3rF
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) April 20, 2026
Now, even if this wasn’t Iranian propaganda, it certainly shouldn’t have been “awesome,” at least for a sitting U.S. senator. But spoilers, it was actually Iranian propaganda:
‘IRANIAN PROPAGANDA’: Despite reports of 26 Iranian “shadow fleet” vessels slipping past U.S. lines, latest intelligence shows no ships have left Iranian ports or breached the blockade.
“So that was just Iranian propaganda?”
“Yes, absolutely.” pic.twitter.com/edIoXDXDM0
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) April 21, 2026
Oh well. Mistakes happen. After all, what could possibly go wrong by echoing the statement of a guy whose X feed is little more than echoing every anti-American, pro-Iranian narrative there is, at least at the moment?
But let’s throw that out and focus on the “awesome” part, because rooting for the country that is involved in armed conflict with your own while you represent that country brings us a little close to using the T-word:
Democrat Senator Chris Murphy Just Showed He Is Truly a Traitor to the United States
He actually replied “awesome” to the news that 26 Iranian shadow fleet vessels breached the US naval blockade.
We all knew he was rooting for Iran, but it’s disgusting to see him do it so… pic.twitter.com/x6iLxMCt80
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 21, 2026
Well, wouldn’t you know it: Chris Murphy would like to apologize that you didn’t get the joke.
“Twitter’s become kind of a cesspool, and I should probably give up on sarcasm on Twitter, obviously,” Murphy told Fox News Tuesday, using the former name for X. Instead, he said he was saying “awesome” because Trump had “bungled” and “mismanaged” a conflict which has crippled Iran’s military complex in a way that Democrat administrations couldn’t through 12 years of negotiations:
JUST IN: Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy doesn’t say he has any regrets after furious backlash to his X post calling reports of Iranian ships slipping past the U.S. naval blockade “awesome.”
“I guess I just have to be more careful about sarcasm on Twitter,” Murphy exclusively told… pic.twitter.com/MB6nuZjY9V
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 21, 2026
On X itself, Murphy was a little less apologetic with his sorry-you-rubes-didn’t-understand-the-joke schtick.
“Ok Twitter, I can’t believe I need to clarify this but obviously Trump’s bungled mismanagement of this war is not ‘awesome’. As I have said a million times here, it’s a disaster and he should end the war immediately. My tweet was something called ‘sarcasm,'” he said.
Ok Twitter, I can’t believe I need to clarify this but obviously Trump’s bungled mismanagement of this war is not “awesome”. As I have said a million times here, it’s a disaster and he should end the war immediately. My tweet was something called “sarcasm”. https://t.co/aL9vSEzZC1
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) April 21, 2026
Sure, it’s our fault that we didn’t get the point that he was just ironically rooting for Iran, our geopolitical enemy. He didn’t choose his words wrong; you just chose not to interpret them in the most favorable possible light.
Apropos of nothing, of course, I give you comments he made just days before the assassination of Charlie Kirk last September in which he said that leftists were “in a war right now to save this country,” had “to be willing to do whatever is necessary in order to save the country,” including “fight[ing] fire with fire” and “blowing up norms.”
Senator Chris Murphy, yesterday:
“We’re in a war right now to save this country. And so you have to be willing to do whatever is necessary in order to save the country.” pic.twitter.com/bdj1rlsDT5
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) September 10, 2025
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Now, did Chris Murphy inspire alleged Kirk killer Tyler Robinson to shoot a conservative activist and father of two merely for his views? No, probably not. Is he part of what the left likes to call a “permission structure” to push the boundaries of acceptable human behavior far beyond what a civilized society would accept as decent, all in the name of affecting change through chaos and evil? Absolutely — and not only that, it’s pretty much the only thing he’s running on so far in 2028.
But when those chickens inevitably come home to roost, Murphy hides behind the façade of one big “J/K!” Sorry that you didn’t get what he meant because you were listening to what he claimed he meant. Right.
Remember this disgrace the next time Murphy pulls this stunt, because I assure you, this won’t be the last occasion. It’s all the man has to offer, after all, and when you have aspirations, you’ve got to use what you’ve got.
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