- The claim that U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed conservative pundit Tucker Carlson’s concerns about starting the Iran war during a February 2026 conversation by saying “we all die anyway” is unrated.
- The rumor stems from an NPR interview with Carlson released in late September. In it, Carlson said that days before the joint U.S.-Israel attack that began the war, Trump told Carlson that his concerns were justified but ultimately didn’t matter.
- We have not rated this claim because there is no evidence beyond Carlson’s reported recollections that would allow us to confirm or disprove the president’s words.
- The White House neither confirmed nor denied Carlson’s claims. Spokesperson Davis Ingle told Snopes over email, “Tucker Carlson is a whiny turncoat who dramatically overestimates his influence and relevance.”
Snopes will update this report if, or when, additional information surfaces.
In September 2026, a claim spread online (archived) that U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed conservative pundit Tucker Carlson’s concerns about starting the Iran war in early 2026 by saying, “We all die anyway.”
Snopes readers asked whether Trump said these exact words, as well as whether such a discussion between Carlson and Trump took place during the lead-up to the Iran war.
Did Tucker Carlson speak privately with Trump about the war with Iran that had not been started yet? Further, did Trump admit that there was no nuclear threat? And did Trump say, “We all have to die sometime”
Carlson claimed to have had this conversation with Trump just days before the U.S. and Israel started the Iran war with an attack that killed Iran’s supreme leader on Feb. 28, 2026. However, Trump has not confirmed or denied that such a conversation took place. As such, we leave this claim unrated.
The White House neither confirmed nor denied Carlson’s claims. Spokesperson Davis Ingle told Snopes over email, “President Trump is committed to ensuring that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson is a whiny turncoat who dramatically overestimates his influence and relevance.”
In an interview with NPR, released on Sept. 24, 2026, Carlson said he had disagreed with Trump about starting the Iran war (emphasis ours):
I said to Trump four days before the war started, “If you do this, the United States will be kicked out of the Gulf, the American empire will begin to collapse, your legacy will be destroyed, along with your party, and a lot of people are going to die.”
… But then I said [to Trump], “This war is not about Iran’s nuclear program, which you told me and the world that you eliminated back in last summer in June. This war is being pushed by Israel with three aims. One, its own regional hegemony. Take Iran off the map. They don’t have freedom of movement as long as Iran is a regional power. Two, diminishing the power of the GCC, the six Gulf states which are a rival to Israel and are becoming this kind of Switzerland of the Middle East. And that’s bad for Israeli interests. And three, getting the US out of the Middle East because we constrain their ambitions, getting our bases out, destroying our bases. Israel wants our bases out of the Middle East.”
I said this to Trump, to his face in the Oval Office, days before the war began. And he looked at me and said, “Yes, you’re right. But in the end, we all die anyway. So it doesn’t matter.” That’s exactly what he said. “In the end, we all die anyway.”
And I said to him, shocked, “But what about our kids, and our grandkids, and our country? And he goes “Aaah.”
… I don’t know, he didn’t respond. That’s a verbatim exchange … as God watches I said that, okay?
Carlson added that Trump “should have been removed from office for threatening first-use nuclear strike.” Carlson also said Israel “caused” Trump to carry out the war on Iran. Carlson makes the first part of the above statement at the 19:52 mark and then at the 27:10 in the video available on NPR’s website:
Carlson was correct that Trump had previously said Iran’s nuclear program had been eliminated. In June 2025, the Trump administration launched airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, later claiming that they were “obliterated”. By February 2026, the Trump administration and Israel launched more attacks on Iran.
Without confirmation from the White House that this exchange occurred as Carlson described it, we are unable to definitively verify it ourselves. The White House did not address our specific questions. They also reportedly did not address NPR’s, instead directing the news organization to Trump’s Truth Social post from April 2026 in which he called Carlson and other pundits “stupid people” who want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
Carlson, once a prominent Trump ally, now vociferously disagrees with the president on the war against Iran and said he deeply regrets his old support for Trump.
For further reading, Snopes has reported on numerous claims about Carlson.
