Aside from calling the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran “absolutely disgusting and evil” when questioned by ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on Sunday, Tucker Carlson had remained uncharacteristically quiet. That all changed on Monday when he released a nearly two-hour-long broadcast that was sheer insanity.
Carlson opened his broadcast by saying the war happened because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “demanded it happen.” According to Carlson, the U.S. had no national security basis for entering this war. He accused Israel of seeking to destabilize both the U.S. and the Gulf States.
He also advanced a far more inflammatory allegation: that Mossad agents had been arrested in Qatar and Saudi Arabia while trying to plant explosives. He offered no evidence to substantiate the claim.
Following Carlson’s podcast, journalists tried to fact check this accusation, but came up empty-handed. However, on Tuesday morning, a spokesman from the Qatari Foreign Ministry confirmed that “there was no information regarding an Israeli intelligence (#Mossad) cell operation in the Gulf state at the moment. The statement comes following circulating suggestions that Qatar had arrested Mossad agents planning bombings in the nation.”
Widely followed X account @AGHamilton29 reported, “Qatar FM confirms that Tucker completely made up a lie about Qatar and Saudis arresting Mossad agents trying to plant bombs.” He added, “At this point, Tucker’s lies are causing serious diplomatic incidents.”
Separately, @AGHamilton29 noted that while Carlson blamed Iran’s strikes on locations in the Gulf States on Israel, Gulf State officials are blaming Iran.
On the Monday edition of her podcast, Megyn Kelly weighed in on the six American service members who have lost their lives so far in Operation Epic Fury. She told viewers, “No one should have to die for a foreign country. I don’t think those service members died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel. … No one is crying that the Ayatollah is dead, but our government’s job is not to look out for Iran or Israel. It’s to look out for us.”
During an interview with The Inner Circle’s Rachael Bade on Monday night, President Trump had harsh words for both Carlson and Kelly.
“I think that MAGA is Trump — MAGA’s not the other two,” Trump said, referring to Kelly and Carlson. “MAGA wants to see our country thrive and be safe. And MAGA loves what I’m doing — every aspect of it… This is a detour that we have to take in order to keep our country safe and keep other countries safe, frankly.”On Kelly, Trump said: “Megyn was opposed to me for years when I ran the first time and nothing stopped me. And so, you know, some people are against — and they always come back. She came all the way back. But now I guess she maybe doesn’t like the idea of this war, but I do because I have to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Iranians.”
Carlson’s insistence that Netanyahu led Trump by the nose into war is a lie. The reality is that rather than being maneuvered into conflict by an ally, the Trump administration’s rationale for the strikes rests on its own assessment of U.S. interests.
Since the 1979 storming of the U.S. Embassy — when Iranian militants seized 66 Americans and held 52 of them captive for 444 days — the theocratic regime in Tehran has waged a sustained proxy war against the U.S.
From sponsoring terrorism to defiantly advancing its nuclear ambitions, Iran’s malevolent leadership and its network of proxy militias have destabilized not only the Middle East but the world.
Together, they bear responsibility for the deaths and injuries of thousands of American service members across the region. The toll is not abstract. My son’s West Point roommate lost both legs after stepping on an Iranian-made IED in Afghanistan.
For anyone who has forgotten the scale and the persistence of Tehran’s aggression over the past 47 years, Substack’s DirectorBlue has compiled a list of 20 of Iran’s most egregious provocations.
When it became clear that Iran was reconstructing and dispersing its nuclear program to new sites after three of its largest facilities were damaged during Operation Midnight Hammer last June, the Trump administration began preparing for the possibility of war.
The world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, officials concluded, could not be permitted to acquire a nuclear weapon. Its recent willingness to launch short-range missile attacks against its Gulf neighbors offers a sobering indication of how it might wield far greater destructive power.
In a January 13 Truth Social post, Trump drew a red line for the mullahs. He would act if the regime executed any more protesters. He urged Iranian citizens to continue protesting, promising that “help is on the way.” At that time, roughly 2,000 protesters had been killed in the government’s crackdown on dissent.
Over the next month, tens of thousands more protesters were slaughtered. While an exact death toll is impossible to verify, estimates range from 30,000 to 40,000. And unlike former President Barack Obama, who drew a red line in 2012 over Syria’s potential use of chemical weapons only to retreat, Trump followed through with action when his line was crossed.
The U.S. should have fought back against Iran a long time ago. Unfortunately, until Trump, no U.S. president had the resolve to stop this regime.
Even rabid anti-Trumper George F. Will, who penned a December op-ed in The Washington Post titled “A sickening moral slum of an administration,” applauded the strikes on Iran. He wrote, “At last, the credibility of U.S. deterrence has been restored.”
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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