World
Trump told Carlson, Musk in early 2025 that he wouldn’t attack Iran — report
US President Donald Trump told erstwhile allies Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson in the Oval Office early last year that he would not go to war with Iran, according to a new book excerpted by The Guardian on Friday.
The excerpt from “Regime Change,” by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, was published after the US and Iran this week reached a memorandum of understanding to end the regional conflict, over the objections of Israeli officials.
“‘They want you to go to war with Iran,’” Carlson told the president, according to the excerpt, which did not specify which “they” Carlson was referring to.
“‘We’re not doing that,’ Trump answered,” the book reportedly said.
The book also reportedly quoted Trump as telling Carlson: “I don’t think there’s ever been an American president as powerful as I am.”
“Struck by this hubris,” Carlson replied that “certainly not since” four-term World War II-era president Franklin Delano Roosevelt had the US seen such a powerful leader, the book said, according to The Guardian.
“‘Really, the only thing that could wreck it is war with Iran,’” Carlson reportedly added.
Carlson, a right-wing Israeli critic whose popular podcast has peddled antisemitic conspiracies, had already criticized Trump at the time for failing to rein in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza, The Guardian said.
Nevertheless, the president continued to “solicit Carlson’s advice, believing he still had sway over a significant portion of the base,” according to the excerpt.
The Christian nationalist podcaster, who was fired from Fox News for spreading conspiracies about Trump’s 2020 election loss, has since broken with Trump over the 39-day bombing campaign that the US and Israel launched on Iran on February 28.
In April, Carlson said on his podcast that he was “tormented” by the way he “misled” people to support Trump in the 2024 election, when the president vowed no new wars in the Middle East.
Trump’s meeting with Musk and Carlson reportedly took place while Musk, who became the world’s first trillionaire this month when his SpaceX company went public, still led the Trump administration’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
Musk, who has also peddled antisemitism and let it proliferate on social media he owns, quit the budget-slashing agency on May 30, 2025 — indicating the three-way Oval Office meeting took place before the US struck Iranian nuclear sites during the 12-day Israel-Iran war last June.
He broke with Trump publicly days later, amid criticism of the president’s fiscal policy, though the feud appears to have abated. Meanwhile, the 2025 US strikes on Iran turned into an early flashpoint between Trump and Carlson, who condemned the attack as “absolutely disgusting and evil.”
According to the excerpt from “Regime Change,” during the exchange between Trump and Carlson, Musk was “transfixed” by a golden pager that Netanyahu had gifted Trump in an homage to Israel’s September 2024 exploding pager attack against Hezbollah.
The shock attack, which required Israel to hoodwink the Iran-backed terror group for years, preceded an Israeli invasion of Lebanon that sought to put an end to Hezbollah’s months-long, incessant attacks on northern Israel.
Trump “regaled” Musk and Carlson at the Oval Office with graphic details of damage and wounds sustained in that attack, including “mutilated genitals and missing hands,” according to the excerpt from “Regime Change.”
“He grew volatile, repeating, ‘It’s horrible, horrible!’” the excerpt said. “While he was taken by the ingenuity, he showed a measure of disbelief at its recklessness.”
