A forthcoming book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan claims Donald Trump privately assured Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk that he would not take the United States into a war with Iran, even as Carlson warned that such a conflict could damage his presidency.<\/p>\n
The account appears in Regime Change<\/em>, which is scheduled for publication in the US on Tuesday. The book describes an Oval Office meeting early last year involving Trump, Carlson and Musk, then a key figure in Trump\u2019s government efficiency push.<\/p>\n According to Haberman and Swan, Trump sought Carlson\u2019s input despite Carlson\u2019s public criticism of him. The authors write that Trump believed Carlson still had influence with a significant part of the rightwing base.<\/p>\n Carlson reportedly raised concerns that Trump was being pushed toward a wider conflict with Iran. \u201cThey want you to go to war with Iran,\u201d Carlson is quoted as saying. Trump allegedly replied: \u201cWe\u2019re not doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The book also says Trump told Carlson, \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s ever been an American president as powerful as I am.\u201d Carlson, according to the authors, responded that the only thing that could wreck that position was a war with Iran.<\/p>\n Haberman and Swan write that Trump later attacked Iran on 28 February of this year. An agreement ending the war was signed earlier this week, according to the book\u2019s account.<\/p>\n The book also describes Trump discussing Israel\u2019s 2024 exploding-pager operation targeting Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon. Hezbollah is backed by Iran.<\/p>\n According to the authors, Trump spoke at length about images he said he had seen showing severe injuries from the attack. The account says he appeared both disturbed by the damage and fascinated by the operation\u2019s method and impact.<\/p>\n The book portrays Musk as focused on a golden pager that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had presented to Trump. Carlson, who has been critical of Israel and the Iran war, is presented as a key source of insight into the Oval Office exchange.<\/p>\n Haberman and Swan state that quoted dialogue in the book reflects personal knowledge of the words and situations described.<\/p>\n The claims arrive amid continued scrutiny of Trump\u2019s foreign policy decision-making and the political pressure surrounding US involvement in the Middle East. Questions about Iran, Israel and regional conflict carry consequences beyond Washington, including energy prices, defense spending, global markets and business confidence.<\/p>\n The excerpts released so far suggest Regime Change<\/em> will focus not only on major policy choices, but also on the private conversations and personal dynamics behind them. For readers following US politics, the book adds another account of how advice, influence and power moved through Trump\u2019s inner circle.<\/p>\n As more excerpts emerge, the central question will be how these private accounts compare with the public record of decisions made in office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A forthcoming book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan claims Donald Trump privately assured Tucker Carlson…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tbdig.com\/divaxo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tbdig.com\/divaxo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tbdig.com\/divaxo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tbdig.com\/divaxo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tbdig.com\/divaxo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tbdig.com\/divaxo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12164,"href":"https:\/\/tbdig.com\/divaxo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12162\/revisions\/12164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tbdig.com\/divaxo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tbdig.com\/divaxo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tbdig.com\/divaxo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tbdig.com\/divaxo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What the Book Says Happened in the Oval Office<\/h2>\n
Another Account Involving Israel\u2019s Pager Attack<\/h2>\n
Why This Matters<\/h2>\n