Is Trump admin planning nuclear strike on Iran in wake of midterms? What we know

On Nov. 1, two days before the 2026 U.S. midterm elections, the conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson posted (archived) on X that “the Trump administration may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran.”

In a more than 700-word post, Carlson claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seeking to pressure U.S. President Donald Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and U.S. Central Command head Brad Cooper to take out Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, a suspected key location in Iran’s nuclear program, using a nuclear bomb.

According to Carlson’s “informed observer,” Trump could make a decision on whether to carry out a nuclear strike on Pickaxe Mountain as soon as Nov. 7.

Carlson’s post also circulated on Facebook and Bluesky (archived, archived). Snopes readers contacted us about Carlson’s claim.

At the time of this writing, neither the Trump administration nor the Pentagon had confirmed that the president was considering using nuclear force against Iran. 

The U.S. has not used nuclear power in warfare since dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, a move that forced a Japanese surrender and led to the end of World War II. Over the past month, Trump has given mixed signals in media interviews about his plans for ending the war in Iran, but has not suggested he was considering using nuclear force.

Experts warned that using nuclear force against Iran would have a devastating impact on the entire Middle East region, could inspire existing nuclear powers like Russia or China to use their arsenal in conflicts in Ukraine and elsewhere and would lead to a nuclear arms race.

A White House spokesperson said in an email to Snopes on Nov. 5:

We contacted the Department of Defense to ask whether Carlson’s post was true. We also contacted Carlson to ask about the credibility of his anonymous source and any updates he had gotten on the situation since publishing his initial post on Nov. 1. We await replies to our queries.

Why is Pickaxe Mountain important?

Though there was no proof that the Trump administration would use nuclear power to do so, Trump has been considering striking Pickaxe Mountain — the target Carlson claimed would require nuclear force — since at least July. For example, on July 21, Trump told reporters at the White House (time code 26:34), “We’ll be hitting that area pretty soon and very heavily.”

In September, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan think tank, wrote that Israeli intelligence reportedly indicated that Iranian authorities moved “uranium centrifuges and centrifuge parts,” which are necessary to enrich uranium for commercial or combat use, to Pickaxe Mountain, which is near the Natanz nuclear facility. 

At the time, the think tank wrote that Pickaxe Mountain would be “difficult” to destroy “even with the heaviest non-nuclear U.S. munitions.” The facility is reportedly buried deep in a granite mountain and the U.S. does not have access to blueprints that would give away its size and shape, or whether it has weak points like the ventilation shafts the U.S. targeted at the Fordo nuclear facility during Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025.

Trump has repeatedly said since the start of the war in Iran that his and Netanyahu’s primary goal is that Iran does not get access to enough enriched uranium to obtain a nuclear weapon. To achieve this aim, the U.S. and Israel would need to curtail Iran’s nuclear material and capabilities like the site at Pickaxe Mountain through either force or diplomacy.

Carlson’s post suggested without proof that the Trump administration was weighing up using its ultimate military power to achieve its aims in Iran.

Mixed signals about Trump’s next steps in Iran

Trump has given mixed signals about how he wants to approach his and Netanyahu’s goals in Iran. By October, Trump was still saying that he wanted to strike Pickaxe Mountain, though no reports suggested such a strike had taken place. 

For example, Trump told Newsmax on Oct. 15, “We’re looking at Pickaxe Mountain. We may have to go there. We’ll take a shot at that one. We’ll knock it out fast.”

Starting after Oct. 20, several U.S. news outlets reported that the Trump administration was drawing up plans for strikes on Iran after the midterm elections on Nov. 3. These reports did not say that Trump was considering using nuclear force. 

In fact, Trump said on Oct. 15, in response to a question about whether he would use tactical nuclear weapons in Iran, “No, I wouldn’t use nuclear. We don’t have to.”

This remark could suggest that the U.S. had non-nuclear ways of destroying Pickaxe Mountain or that Trump wanted to allow time for diplomatic negotiations to take place.

However, by the start of November, PBS reported that negotiations between Washington and Tehran on a deal to end the war were “tense.” According to the report, Washington wanted early assurances that Iran would not develop a nuclear weapon, while Tehran wanted to defer the issue for later talks. 

On Nov. 2, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi appeared to signal that the ball was in the U.S.’s court. He reportedly said:

We have put forward our conditions and proposal, and everything depends on Washington’s political judgement. If it opts for sincere diplomacy, we are ready to engage. But if it intends to resort to deception or military action, it will face a response more bitter and more severe than before.

Carlson published his post alleging that the U.S. was considering a nuclear resolution to the war in Iran that same day.

By Nov. 3, despite the October reports that the U.S. was planning strikes on Iran after the midterm elections, Trump reportedly told the Financial Times that the U.S. seemed to be “getting everything we want” in diplomatic negotiations and had no plans for immediate strikes. 

However, that same day, Trump also told Fox News (time code 13:57) the U.S. had to “do something large” in the war with Iran. He did not specify whether “something large” was in reference to diplomacy or military attacks, but did add, “A lot of people would like to do the heavy hitting.”

Trump must balance input from Tel Aviv and Washington

It was unclear from Trump’s Election Day interview with Fox News who “a lot of people” were, or who exactly the president was taking advice from on the war in Iran.

On Oct. 28, news broke that U.S. Vice President JD Vance reportedly sent a letter to Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s top security body, in a bid to restart peace talks. The Wall Street Journal reported that Vance sent the letter at Trump’s request, though Trump himself appeared to suggest it was Vance’s idea. Either way, the letter suggested the U.S. had not given up on the idea of a diplomatic solution to the war in Iran.

On Nov. 1, Carlson claimed that Netanyahu had pressured both Trump and other officials, including Hegseth, to use nuclear power in Iran. PBS reported that there had been “growing fears” that Netanyahu could be pushing Trump to escalate the conflict in Iran.

Netanyahu, whose coalition failed to secure a majority in Israel’s October elections, will lose his position as prime minister if he cannot form a 61-seat majority in the Knesset. PBS reported that Netanyahu could be, “pushing for new strikes against Iran in an effort to stay in power in an emergency government during renewed war.” Snopes has not independently verified this claim.

Trump reportedly spoke to Netanyahu on Oct. 31, the day before Carlson’s post, though the details of that call were unclear. However, the Telegraph newspaper reported it was unlikely Netanyahu would have pushed for a nuclear strike on Iran, writing that if Israel “were seen to be involved in any way in breaking the taboo on the use of nuclear weapons, it could rebound horribly. It would take only one strike on Israel to make it unliveable, given that it is such a tiny country.”

Therefore, while Netanyahu might have reason to encourage refreshed strikes on Iran, it’s unlikely he would push for those strikes to use nuclear weapons.

Ultimately, the mixed reporting throughout October and November and Araghchi’s statement on Nov. 2 suggested the U.S. and Iran were preparing for both a diplomatic and a military resolution to the war, potentially developing at the same time. The available evidence did not suggest that the Trump administration, regardless of input from Netanyahu or anyone else, was planning a U.S. nuclear strike on Iran, something that could set off further strikes in the Middle East and Europe and lead to a nuclear arms race.

For further reading, follow Snopes’ coverage of the war in Iran.

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