Suspicion after meeting with Trump: Happening against his will
Published 2026-05-02 23.57
He spoke with Trump many times in the weeks before the war.
Now Tucker Carlson has a strong suspicion.
- He is doing this against his will.
Carlson says in a long interview with The New York Times that he traveled to Washington three times in the weeks before the war began in late February.
He met Trump over lunch in the Oval Office and also had other meetings with him.
They also spoke many times on the phone.
Iran was the constant topic of conversation.
"Like a hostage"
There is one thing in particular that now makes him suspect that Donald Trump has started a war he does not really want.
– My strong impression was that Trump was more of a hostage than an independent decision-maker in this, the controversial media profile tells the NYT.
The bombing war against Iran has created a huge rift in conservative circles and within the Republican Party.
The quarrel that has perhaps received the most attention is the one between President Trump and Tucker Carlson, 57.
Carlson, a former Fox News host, has speculated on his social media show that the president could possibly be the “antichrist,” calls him a “false prophet” and has apologized for misleading voters by supporting Trump in the election.
Trump has responded by calling Carlson a person with a “low IQ,” claiming that he is “a broken man” and speculating that he should perhaps see a psychologist.
Started with the same question
Carlson tells NYT that the decision to start a war on Iran was “the most foolish thing an American president has ever done” – but doubts that it was Trump’s own decision.
In the interview with The New York Times, Carlson now reveals the private conversations about Iran in the White House and on the phone.
Carlson says that Trump’s constant introduction to their conversations was “Do you want Iran to have nuclear weapons?”
– Then I said: Well, I’m kind of against nuclear weapons. I don’t want nuclear weapons, I don’t want Israel to have nuclear weapons, I don’t want anyone to have nuclear weapons, he says.
– The question is: What do you do about it? And that’s where the reasoning about doing this ended. He never seemed enthusiastic about it, not at any point.
“Had no choice”
Carlson states that Trump knew all the possible negative consequences of a war with Iran and that it would mean the end of his presidency.
But that the president just listened – and repeated the same thing every conversation.
– He made no effort whatsoever to convince me, other than to say: It will be okay. Everything will be fine. And I didn’t feel that way, Carlson tells the NYT.
– And my strong feeling at the end of those conversations – the last one was probably about a week before the war started – was that he felt he had no choice and that he had come to terms with it. He was not happy about it. He did not seem enthusiastic at all. He made no attempt to say that once we do this, America will be at peace, we will be safe, we will be more prosperous. None of that. Zero.
Not for war in the White House
Carlson says that in the weeks before the war, no one in the White House seemed to think that a military conflict with Iran was a good idea.
He says that no one close to Trump pushed for the conflict and, as far as he knows, gave the president guidance in any direction.
They were neither for nor against the war. But that “people from outside” were calling constantly.
The conservative profile says that he does not believe the speculation that the attack on Venezuela where Maduro was taken away meant that Trump saw himself invincible and convinced himself that a war in Iran would go just as painlessly.
Carlson says that during the many conversations they had over the winter, Trump showed no signs of cognitive
Wants investigation
– Trump is not very well informed on many subjects, and is even proudly ignorant about a lot of them. But he has a remarkable ability to understand people and power dynamics. You don't become president by accident. He is smart in the ways that matter politically. And my strong opinion was that he did this against his will, Carlson tells the NYT.
Carlson believes that Trump's assurances that everything will work out sounded more like "excuses from a man who doesn't feel he has a choice" than genuine optimism.
The media profile says that he wants a serious investigation into "the mechanisms by which a person who is allegedly in control and has been given this mandate by tens of millions of voters cannot make a decision in the best interest of the country or even in his own best interest".
He sees Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “his many supporters in the United States” as driving Trump’s swing on the war.
The question is why, says Carlson.
“What was it about this particular moment that allowed a foreign leader to have this level of influence over an American leader? And I don’t know the answer, but I think it’s worth finding out,” Carlson told the NYT.
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