US President Donald Trump assured rightwing commentator Tucker Carlson and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk that he would not launch a war against Iran last year, according to a new book.
The claim appears in Regime Change, a book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, which is set to be published in the US on Tuesday, reports The Guardian.
The book describes an Oval Office meeting between Trump, Carlson and Musk early last year.
According to Haberman and Swan, Carlson, despite previously criticising Trump from his influential position in rightwing media, was approached by the president for advice because Trump believed he still had influence among a significant part of his political base.
“Carlson had criticised Trump for refusing to knock [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu over the Gaza carnage; now he would make clear to the president that a broader war would be his ruin,” the authors wrote.
“They want you to go to war with Iran,” Carlson told Trump. “We’re not doing that,” Trump replied.
The book also claims Trump told Carlson: “I don’t think there’s ever been an American president as powerful as I am.”
Haberman and Swan wrote that Carlson responded: “Certainly not since FDR. Really, the only thing that could wreck it is war with Iran.”
However, Trump launched an attack on Iran on 28 February this year. An agreement to end the war was signed earlier this week.
The book’s excerpts also reveal accounts of Trump’s decision-making over the Iran conflict, Situation Room discussions related to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, and alleged attempts to suspend legal rights during an immigration crackdown.
The authors further claimed that Trump described in detail the injuries caused by Israel’s 2024 “exploding pagers” attack on Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed group in Lebanon, during the Oval Office meeting with Musk and Carlson.
According to the book, Trump spoke about the aftermath of the attack, describing the destruction caused by the explosions.
“He had seen pictures, he said. Mutilated genitals and missing hands. He was horrified by the injuries, but fascinated as well, lingering on the scenes and the details,” the authors wrote.
“One survivor, he said, looked like a great white shark came and just took a chunk out of him. It was like a shark bite. It was horrible.”
“He grew volatile, repeating, ‘It’s horrible, horrible!”
The authors said the Oval Office conversation was part of their wider reporting on what they described as the president’s increasingly unpredictable behaviour.
Israel carried out the pager attack against Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon in September 2024. Haberman and Swan said their account of Trump’s reaction was based on information from Carlson, a critic of Israel and the Iran war.
Musk, who was leading the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to overhaul the federal government at the time, was described in the book as being “transfixed” by a golden pager that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented to Trump.
The authors said Carlson’s and Trump’s remarks were placed in quotation marks because they indicated they had personal knowledge of the conversations and events.
“There was something else that captivated” Trump, the authors wrote. They added that many of the devices exploded in public places, making it difficult to know who was carrying a pager when it detonated.
“The indiscriminate nature of the killing and maiming had shocked Trump, and while he was taken by the ingenuity, he showed a measure of disbelief at its recklessness.
“He seemed at once enthralled and horrified.”
