Carlson Alleges Netanyahu Is Pressing Trump Toward a Nuclear Strike on Iran's Pickaxe Mountain

On Sunday, Tucker Carlson posted a warning on X: the Trump administration, he wrote, "may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran." The conservative commentator said the pressure was coming from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and that an American nuclear attack would set a new precedent. A day later, the US carried out what it called "defensive" strikes on Iran's Qeshm Island.

Carlson named the target he believes is in view: Pickaxe Mountain, a heavily fortified site near Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility. It contains two deeply buried tunnel complexes, which the US and Israel regard as a main objective. Both countries have questioned whether 13,000 kg bunker-buster bombs can reach them.

Carlson's argument rests on that doubt. In his post he said no conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place. The only military option, he wrote, is a nuclear strike, and he said Netanyahu has been pushing hard for one. He quoted an unnamed "informed observer" as saying, "Bibi calls Trump about it every day."

Trump himself has talked about Pickaxe Mountain. In an interview on Newsmax earlier this month, he said the US was looking at the site as a possible target for a future strike. He added that the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, the MOAB, which the US would allegedly use, is not nuclear. "It's like a tiny nuclear bomb," he said, before adding that the mother of all bombs is one big bomb but is not nuclear.

Carlson also made claims about Netanyahu's political position. He described the prime minister as "cornered and desperate," said he cannot form a government without Trump's direct intervention, and concluded that Netanyahu "needs this war." Earlier this week, Netanyahu pressed Trump to resume strikes on Iran immediately after the US midterm elections, in a call the American president described as a "very good conversation."

According to Carlson, Netanyahu is applying "maximum pressure" to Trump's closest allies in the administration: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe. He said Rubio and Ratcliffe are "following Netanyahu's lead." He warned that at the current pace a global depression is imminent, and that a nuclear strike would radically accelerate the destruction. He closed by urging the "hundreds of millions of people who will be killed along with their children" to speak up.

The Qeshm strikes give the warning a immediate backdrop. A US official, speaking to the Wall Street Journal on Monday, said the strikes were limited and did not amount to a resumption of major combat operations. They came after Trump answered "no" when a reporter asked him earlier that Monday whether he was considering resuming strikes on Iran following Tuesday's election. The sequence has raised doubts about Washington's current stance in a war now eight months old.

Carlson's claims are his own assertions, supported by one unnamed source, and no official statement has confirmed a nuclear option is under consideration. What to watch: whether the administration addresses nuclear options directly, and whether the Qeshm strikes remain contained or lead to a wider resumption of fighting after the election.