Tucker Carlson has teased a new interview with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, which the conservative former Fox News host said will air in the next few days.
Why It Matters
U.S. strikes on three of Iran’s major nuclear sites in June split President Donald Trump’s support base, and drew fierce criticism from Carlson, a former Trump ally.
Carlson became embroiled in a high-profile and much-watched spat with GOP Senator Ted Cruz prior to the U.S. attacking Iranian sites, during which he accused Cruz of not knowing “anything” about Iran.
What To Know
Carlson said he had conducted the interview with Iran’s president “because we were just at war with Iran 10 days ago and maybe again.”
“American citizens have the constitutional right, and the God-given right, to all the information they can gather about matters that affect them,” he said in a brief clip posted to social media on Saturday.
Carlson said the interview, conducted remotely and via a translator, would be broadcast after editing “in a day or two.”
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Carlson said he had swerved putting questions to the Iranian politician he believed would not yield honest answers, such as the impact of U.S. strikes on Tehran’s nuclear program.
“There’s no chance he’s going to answer that question honestly—I didn’t bother to ask it,” Carlson said.
Trump has said the U.S. strikes “obliterated” the Iranian nuclear program, but the Pentagon only said the attacks had “degraded their program by one or two years.” Assessments on how much damage huge U.S. bombs wrought on the deeply buried nuclear sites in Iran are still coming in, but experts have said it is very difficult to erase the nuclear knowledge cultivated by Tehran over decades.
Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, told NBC that the U.S. had caused “serious damage” to the country’s nuclear program but that Iran would continue to enrich uranium.
Tehran has long said its nuclear program is peaceful, but international inspectors have found evidence of uranium enriched far beyond the threshold needed for non-military purposes. Israeli strikes on Iran last month, before the U.S. became involved, were aimed at taking out Tehran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon, Israel said.
“Can you believe everything you hear from the president of Iran? Probably not,” Carlson said. “But that’s not the point. The point is, you should be able to decide for yourself whether you believe it or not.”
Carlson said he had also put in a fresh request to interview Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who will meet Trump in Washington on Monday.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was seen for the first time in public on Saturday since the start of the war with Israel, which has become known as the “12 day war.”
What People Are Saying
President Donald Trump said of Carlson during a press conference with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer last month: “Let him go get a television network.”
What Happens Next
Carlson’s interview with Masoud Pezeshkian will be broadcast shortly, he said.
