JUST NUKE TEHRAN!? Tucker Carlson, and a creeping moral collapse on the podcasting right

• When Tucker Carlson proposed nuking Tehran in response to an alleged assassination plot against Donald Trump, his words were not merely unhinged—they were morally monstrous. But, what is perhaps worse, leading conservative podcasters are not getting it. Matt Walsh says “I agree with Tucker” and Dave Rubin seems to think the biggest problem is hypocrisy rather than psychopathy. This essay examines the deeper implications of this, and what it says about the moral trajectory of right-wing media.

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When it comes to topics like Israel and Iran, there seems to be a breakdown in basic moral reasoning among the biggest podcasters on the political right.

As a token case of this problem, let us consider, from a few days ago, an instantly famous conversation (or perhaps I should say confrontation) between Tucker Carlson—former top editorialist at FOX NEWS, and now a huge podcaster with millions of followers—and firebrand Republican Senator Ted Cruz.

It will now feel like this exchange took place a million years ago because the US has already attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities. But it didn’t drop nuclear weapons on Tehran. And that’s what the portion of the Carlson-Cruz exchange that everyone has been quoting and commenting on is about.

What I will do is comment on the commentators. But first, let’s see that portion.

In this famous exchange, Ted Cruz shares that, according to US Intelligence, the Iranian ayatollahs are trying to assassinate Donald Trump. And then…

TUCKER CARLSON: I just want to pull that thread because it’s so important. I voted for Donald Trump. I campaigned for Donald Trump. He’s our president. And we’re on the cusp of a war [with Iran]. So if Iran—if there’s evidence that Iran paid hitmen to kill Donald Trump and is currently doing that, where is—? What are you even talking—? I’ve never heard that before.

SENATOR TED CRUZ: Okay…

CARLSON: Where is the evidence? Who are these people? Why haven’t they been arrested? Why are we not at war with Iran?

CRUZ: That’s a great question to ask.

CARLSON: How do you know that that’s true?

CRUZ: We know that it’s true because we have been told that by the military and our intelligence community for the last two years.

CARLSON: ‘We’ meaning who?

CRUZ: Congress has [been told] and the public. I mean, we had multiple testimonies. I can send you, uh, testimony—.

CARLSON: Do we know the names of the people or where this happened or what they tried to do to kill Trump?

CRUZ: We do not—. We have not apprehended an Iranian hitman trying to kill him. We know that Iran is trying to do so.

CARLSON: In the United States?

CRUZ: Yes! And, and by the way, like, Iran put out a—.

CARLSON: It just seems like a huge headline and you’re acting like everyone knows this. I didn’t know that.

CRUZ: Iran put out a whole video about murdering Trump.

CARLSON: Right, but, I’ve never heard evidence that there are hitmen in the United States, I mean, trying to kill Trump right now. We should, like, have a nationwide dragnet on this and we should attack Iran immediately if that’s true. Don’t you think?

CRUZ: No, uh, but—.

CARLSON: If they’re trying to assassinate our president!?

CRUZ: They have been for 2 years. They are our enemies.

CARLSON: Then why are we not at war with them?

CRUZ: Well we are trying to take out—.

CARLSON: Why don’t we just nuke Tehran? If they’re trying to murder our president!? There’s nothing that you could do that would be worse for the United States than murdering Trump.

CRUZ: Amen. I agree with that.

CARLSON: And I just don’t understand why you’re not calling for the use of nuclear weapons against the ayatollah right now. I’m serious! If you really believe they’re trying to murder our—.

CRUZ: The use of nuclear weapons!? See, that’s part of the problem of—.

CARLSON: Whatever it takes!

CRUZ: So, it’s—.

CARLSON: What do you mean? You don’t seem to take the allegations seriously. I do. If you believe they’re trying to murder Trump we need to stop what we’re doing and punish them.

All right. Let’s dissect this madness. Carlson has proposed the following:

• If the ayatollahs try to assassinate Trump, then nuke Tehran.

In other words, if a bunch of jihadi psychopaths—who are now oppressing the civilian population of Tehran—try to kill Donald Trump, the oppressed civilian population of Tehran is who should pay for that. They should all be killed.

Right away, I must dismiss one hypothesis that is perhaps tempting to those experiencing Tucker Carlson for the first time. From the way he hyperventilates, with his every shrill sentence just short of a tortured schoolgirl’s scream, and the bouts of seemingly forced giggling that often interrupt his speech, you might think that Tucker Carlson is having a nervous breakdown. But this is only if you’ve never seen him before—he always sounds like that. This is not a nervous breakdown.

What is a different hypothesis? That Tucker Carlson is a psychopath. After all, he does come on pretty strong.

Consider his grammar: the construction “Why don’t we just…” is commonly used to communicate that whatever follows is, to the speaker, the most natural and obvious thing in the world. If it’s too dark, then why don’t we just turn on the lights? If it’s too far, then why don’t we just take the car? If it’s already too late, then why don’t we just stay at home? But Carlson’s structure is like this: If the ayatollahs have a plan to assassinate Trump, then “why don’t we just nuke Tehran?”

Just…, you know, nuke Tehran. No big deal. Just nuke it!

And then he doubles down: “I just don’t understand why you’re not calling for the use of nuclear weapons against the ayatollah right now.” The phrasing “I just don’t understand,” again, is a rhetorical device employed to communicate that you think you are saying the most natural and obvious thing in the world. It is Cruz—according to Carlson’s chicken-sqweak-amplified implications—who is unreasonable, because he hasn’t already called for killing the civilian population of Tehran. C’mon!—Carlson is indignant—Why not?

And then, just in case anybody thought Carlson was joking, he belts out another girly shriek: “I’m serious!”

To cap it all, when Cruz reacts incredulously: “The use of nuclear weapons?!”, Carlson snaps: “Whatever it takes!” Yes, damn it. No matter how many civilians we kill.

Well, if Carlson really is serious—as he in fact insists—about dropping nuclear weapons on the city of Tehran, then he is a psychopath.

Matt Walsh’s reaction

Let me just say, before I do what I do, that I regularly listen to Matt Walsh. And I highly recommend him. I often agree with him, sometimes disagree, always enjoy. I love the sarcasm. The devil-may-care style. The sheer virility—the manliness. The beard. The flannel shirts! The family values. Everything.

But I must perform a service. On his podcast, Matt Walsh reacted to the Ted Cruz-Tucker Carlson exchange as follows:

“I agree with Tucker that if it’s actually true that Iran has tried to, or is right now trying to kill our president, then absolutely we should invade the country and annihilate the whole regime. Obviously! When the United States has—. It should pers—. The United States should personally kill every person in the Iranian government if they’re trying to assassinate our president. This is an act of war against us and we should be—, we would be totally justified in responding with overwhelming violent force. Now, you still can’t go in and purposely kill civilians, but, uh, we would be—, that’s an act of war and we should respond with our own act of war. If you try to kill our president, if you as a sovereign nation conspire to kill our president we should go in and conquer and destroy you and wipe out anyone even vaguely involved in the plot.”

Matt Walsh says “annihilate the whole regime,” “kill every person in the Iranian government,” and also “wipe out anyone even vaguely involved in the plot.” In his inimitable swashbuckling style, he is saying this:

• If the ayatollahs are trying to kill Donald Trump, then kill those responsible.

This is of course an entirely different course of action from dropping nuclear weapons on Tehran and killing the civilian population of the city—a difference underscored by Walsh’s explicit statement that, even if the ayatollahs are planning to kill Trump, “you still can’t go in and purposely kill civilians.”

Okay, well, good on Walsh: he does not support committing a mass atrocity on the people of Tehran. His moral compass is not broken. And thank goodness for that.

However, Walsh’s reasoning is still defective, because he apparently believes that he agrees with Tucker Carlson! He says it explicitly: “I agree with Tucker…”

No, he doesn’t.

Walsh and Carlson are saying entirely different things. Carlson has proposed dropping a nuclear bomb on Tehran, which would be to purposely kill civilians—a monstruos crime and the very thing that Walsh has explicitly said one cannot morally do: “you still can’t go in and purposely kill civilians.”

So, if they don’t agree, what is going on here? Why did Walsh state explicitly that “I agree with Tucker”?

The most generous interpretation of Walsh’s behavior is one that I consider highly probable: that, in his mental sloppiness, Walsh really meant to say that he agrees with Carlson in the abstract sense. Which is to say that Walsh—like Carlson—believes that, if terrorists really do plot to kill the president of the United States, then the US should do something about that.

Fine. But even this interpretation does not redeem Walsh. Because no moral person who is thinking straight pays the social price of shouting, “I’m with psycho,” just to express that no plot against the president’s life should be tolerated—an entirely unremarkable opinion. Neither would a moral person thinking straight enhance the prestige of a psychopath. Yet Walsh did precisely that: he published a podcast reaction to a very famous and controversial exchange featuring Tucker Carlson—who said drop a nuke on Tehran—and then Walsh said: “I agree with Tucker.”

To cap it all, Walsh borrows a move from the left and plays the victim, loudly complaining that people are pressuring him to take sides, as if he were the lone moderate willing to consider both sides of an issue in a world infested with unreasonable, polarizing extremists. No, Matt, that’s not what’s going on. You do need to side against the psychopath. You chose the wrong side. Some of us who’ve been admiring you are strongly disappointed. We are not polarizing extremists; we are moral persons.

• The smart and moral thing to do here is to rebuke Tucker Carlson—period.

This should be obvious to a podcaster who presents himself as a moral influence on Americans and daily lectures them on what is right and what is wrong. (And for that reason, Matt Walsh, you are today… cancelled.)

Dave Rubin’s reaction

Same disclosure: love Dave Rubin’s show. Often agree, sometimes disagree, always enjoy. But, once again, I must perform a service.

Here is what Dave Rubin had to say about Tucker Carlson’s astonishing violence.

Dave Rubin: …Tucker’s response is rather extraordinary because all the time Tucker always says ‘I would never be for killing anyone. I don’t want to kill anyone. I’m peaceful. Blah blah blah.’ And it’s, it’s a sort of thin—I would say, low resolution—bumper sticker thing. Because if someone killed your wife you might want to kill them. If they were shooting rockets at your house, if someone from another country raped your daughter, etc., etc. Like, if it was in self-defense you might kill someone. So to just say ‘I never want to kill anyone’…!

I don’t want to kill anyone. Obviously, you watching this don’t want to kill anyone. But there are moments that you are—, you should defend yourself. And if someone’s saying: ‘I’m going to wipe your plan…—your country off the planet,’ well then perhaps you might be willing to kill someone.

So it’s interesting to me that he [Carlson] said he has never heard of it [the Iranian plot to assassinate Trump], something that virtual—, I think most people have heard of. It’s been widely reported.

But then he did ask the right questions. How do you know it’s true? And again, I’m giving the Devil [Carlson] his due as it pertains to [skepticism of] the Department of Justice.

But then he [Carlson] says, all right then we should attack Iran, uh, why aren’t we at war with Iran, and we should nuke Tehran! And even Ted Cruz is not for any of that. Like, let’s say it is true. Let’s assume that it’s true for a moment that there’s an assassination threat against Donald Trump. Um, that doesn’t mean we should nuke Tehran! We should try to find—. There are pinpoint ways. I mean, I think the Mossad [Israeli intelligence] has shown there are ways through beepers and other things to kill specific people who are plotting to do things. But Tucker went from I’m not for killing anyone to moments later saying, if this is true, nuke Tehran.

Now, he’s entitled to whatever opinion he wants on any of this, but I’m just trying to show you the sort of thinness around what he’s been doing, and I genuinely do not know why. Also he was very dismissive of the assassination plot and then suddenly was implying that Ted Cruz wasn’t even taking it seriously enough. I mean if Ted Cruz—. The implication is that if Ted Cruz brought a bill to the Senate today to say I want to nuke Tehran because they were trying to kill, uh, Donald Trump, that Tucker would be for it. I wouldn’t be for that. I mean, I just don’t really understand that.

Good for Dave Rubin: like Walsh, he doesn’t want to nuke Tehran.

Even better: unlike Walsh, Rubin doesn’t wave aside by total omission Carlson’s insistent demand that one should nuke Tehran. To the contrary, Rubin directly addresses the point and expresses astonishment at Carlson’s statements.

Yet, Rubin seems to have his own problems with basic reasoning, because he seems to think that the biggest issue here is that Carlson is a hypocrite.

Yes, of course, Carlson is a hypocrite, as anyone should suspect on basic intuition just from witnessing the cringe-factor, epileptic giggle attacks that routinely possess him. But, my goodness, Rubin has a whole team looking stuff up and yet he missed the best material to establish Carlson’s hypocrisy, which comes from an exchange with Piers Morgan:

TUCKER CARLSON: (…) No, look, I’m just saying, international law is a theoretical concept. And it’s literally theoretical because it’s not enforceable. And we know that because it’s not enforced. So what matters is what’s the interest of your country and what’s right and wrong. And I’m a Christian, so that point’s pretty clear for me. (…) It’s wrong to send cluster bombs to Ukraine, which you supported. I’m totally opposed to that. Cluster bombs to kill more kids? Like, why? That’s wrong. I don’t care if international law says it’s wrong—that’s irrelevant.

PIERS MORGAN: Was it wrong, was it wrong for America to use atomic bombs in World War II?

CARLSON [rushing to answer before Morgan can finish]: Absolutely!

MORGAN: Really?

CARLSON [incredulously]: To use nuclear weapons?

MORGAN: Yeah.

CARLSON: Yes!

MORGAN: [Even] to end the war?

CARLSON: Of course!

(…)

CARLSON: I’m against that. I am against killing civilians. I’m against firebombing cities. I’m against bioweapons. I’m against chemical weapons.

Notice, above, that Morgan invokes the well-known argument that the nuclear bombs dropped by the US on Japan in WWII were supposedly decisive to end the war, and therefore, supposedly, to save many American soldiers’ lives. According to this famous apology for the nuclear attacks on the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but for those nuclear bombs, the war would have dragged on for many additional months, costing many additional US lives.

Carlson rejects this argument. It doesn’t matter—there is simply no justification. Nuclear weapons are always wrong. Except of course if someone plans to kill Trump; in that special case you may nuke Tehran and all the civilians in it.

So this is what so exercises Rubin: the inconsistency, the contradiction, the hypocrisy. And so Rubin goes ahead and video-quotes Carlson saying—in the same conversation with Ted Cruz in which he says ‘nuke Tehran’—that “I am against killing anybody, actually.” And he quotes him because Rubin really wants to prove to you that Carlson is indeed a hypocrite. Because the hypocrisy—for Rubin—is what is most outrageous.

Is he mad?

What does Rubin care that Tucker Carlson is a hypocrite? That’s a mere footnote. In a moral society, psychopaths have to be hypocrites. They have little choice, as I have explained here:

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Are the Western bosses PSYCHOPATHS? Part 1: Bret Weinstein: "I wouldn't put it past them"

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Rubin’s entire focus should have been on this: Carlson is talking like a psychopath.

Believe you me, this matters

When compared to other podcasters in his category, Tucker Carlson ranks among the top three, behind Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro. Carlson is considered one of the most influential conservative podcasters because he reaches about 14% of Americans weekly, according to a 2025 Reuters Institute survey, and has at times topped the Spotify charts.

• If anyone is an ‘influencer,’ Tucker Carlson is.

So when Carlson off-handedly suggests that nuking Tehran is not merely an appropriate but an obvious response to an ayatollah plan to kill Trump, and moreover that anybody dragging their feet on perpetrating this atrocity is being unreasonable, he is pulling off a mentalist trick to move the Overton window for millions of Americans, producing a shift in the moral balance of the nation.

Do we want this man influencing English-speaking minds?

Tucker Carlson’s psychopathic remarks should not be allowed to stand. Podcasters on the right should all be descending on Tucker Carlson like vultures on dead meat for casually advocating the mass murder of civilians, lest they be associated with Carlson’s obviously broken moral compass.

Yet Matt Walsh comes out to say, “I agree with Tucker.” And Dave Rubin complains mostly that Carlson is a hypocrite! Are they nuts?

The right-wing podcasters should not think they can afford to take a principled moral stance only when the left commits moral atrocities. That’s not a good look, and it won’t work. If this is not corrected, we will witness the moral collapse of the right-wing podcasters—they’ll lose any claim to the moral high ground they so proudly consider themselves to be holding.

I think they better change course; the Western culture war is at stake.

The fight for Western Civilization is not just against the nihilistic left—it is also against the madmen we let slip through on the right. The only side worth defending is the one with a conscience.