Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei stressed that “our most malicious enemy and the enemy of the Islamic government is the U.S. The U.S. officials are untruthful, treacherous, brazen and greedy. They are deceitful in every way… They are oppressive and cruel. They are terrorists as well”. He further noted that “the Americans have said several times that they are willing to help us in terms of medication and in treating the Coronavirus. This is very surprising. First of all, according to what your own officials have said, you have shortages... Secondly, you are accused of having created this virus. I do not know how accurate this claim is, but considering the circumstances that exist, which reasonable individual can trust you? You might give us a medicine that would spread the disease even more or make it last longer. Some people even say that some forms of the virus are particular to Iranian genes and thus produced on the basis of genetic science”. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo subsequently released a statement entitled “Khamenei’s Lies About the Wuhan Virus Put Lives at Risk”, and the State Department published “Iran: COVID-19 Disinformation Fact-Sheet”.