The White House’s rapid response social media account on Monday criticized media coverage of Vice President JD Vance’s participation in U.S. peace talks with Iran in Switzerland — and pointed to Al Jazeera’s reporting as evidence. 

The rapid response team, a part of the White House’s communications office that defends the Trump administration’s record through social media, criticized media outlets on X that reported on Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declining to participate in a photo op with Vance, and Qatari officials not shaking Vance’s hand when photos were taken, as intentional digs at the United States. 

“A lot of biased media outlets and Democrats were pushing a fake narrative yesterday about the talks in Switzerland,” the rapid response team wrote. “Here’s the real story from people actually in the room,” it said, referring to a tweet from Al Jazeera that included video of Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani rejecting such reports. Al Thani told Al Jazeera, according to the outlet’s social media post that the White House team shared, “that reports of him snubbing the US vice president were unfounded, saying they had spent hours together during negotiations and maintained a strong partnership throughout the process.”

Al Jazeera is a Qatari state-controlled news organization long criticized for its sympathetic coverage of Hamas and hostility to Israel. The outlet, which is financed by the Qatari government and ruling Al Thani family, has faced accusations that it spreads misinformation to promote Qatar’s preferred narrative on a range of sensitive topics, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the rapid response team’s post complimenting Al Jazeera’s coverage.

Video footage from the peace talks began to circulate on social media on Sunday showing Al Thani walking past the vice president and instead embracing Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir. The footage also showed Araghchi walking into the room and greeting Al Thani before exiting without acknowledging Vance.

Several media outlets went on to describe the incident as a “snub” of the vice president by the Iranians and Qataris, which a U.S. official pushed back on by noting that Vance had met with Al Thani for hours beforehand. 

“This is complete nonsense,” the official said. “The U.S. delegation had just spent hours with the Qataris and there was no need to re-greet someone having just spent hours with.”

The official said that “Iranian representatives previously agreed to a press availability at the beginning of the meeting. They even brought state media with them to cover it, who were pre-staged at the event. Despite this, they left the meeting upon seeing the volume of press in attendance and then distributed an inaccurate account of the situation through state media.”

Even as the official refuted the characterization of both incidents as a snub, Iranian state media wrote on Sunday that Iran’s delegation to the peace talks declined an offer by the U.S. and others to participate in the photo op.