Tucker Carlson Claims Trump Is Weighing Nuclear Strike on Iran's Pickaxe Mountain

Commentator Tucker Carlson said in an X post on Sunday that the Trump administration may be within days of a nuclear strike on Iran's Pickaxe Mountain, a tunnel complex in central Iran near Natanz, with a decision expected by November 7. Carlson said Israeli intelligence claims Iran has restarted uranium enrichment there, which Tehran denies, and that no conventional US weapon can penetrate 300 feet of granite. He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, weakened after Israel's October 27 election, is pressing Trump, and that a strike would make World War III inevitable. No US or Israeli official has confirmed any plan, and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump has publicly ruled out using a nuclear bomb on Iran. He told reporters over the weekend that one or two sites remain and could be handled in 10 minutes, naming Pickaxe Mountain, and told a November 1 rally in Dubuque, Iowa, that the US would eventually have to give Iran "the hammer."

Right-leaning outlets agree on the core claim but weigh it differently. The Daily Caller headlines Carlson's warning and says its news foundation corroborated the central allegation with a source familiar with the matter, linking it to renewed talk of military action. The Daily Mail stresses doubt: it notes no official confirmation, that Carlson cited no documents and relied on an unnamed observer, and it adds Trump's Iowa rally remarks. Left-leaning outlets had not reported this story at the time of writing, while right-leaning and alternative outlets had. Alternative coverage differs: Antiwar.com adds Trump's public rejection of a nuclear strike and his own Pickaxe Mountain comments, while The Times of Israel calls Carlson a conspiracy theorist and far-right podcaster.