He should have listened to Tucker Carlson and other critics who predicted mass deaths, civilizational collapse, and nuclear apocalypse
NEW TEHRAN—June 21, 2025. A date which will live in infamy. One month ago today, disgraced former president Donald Trump started World War III by sending U.S. aircraft to bomb Iranian nuclear sites over the objections of prescient critics who correctly predicted the calamitous aftermath that would follow: millions of deaths, a global economic depression, and civilizational collapse.
“The first week of a war with Iran could easily kill thousands of Americans,” Tucker Carlson, the alternative history podcaster, warned on June 4. “It could also collapse our economy, as surging oil prices trigger unmanageable inflation. Consider the effects of $30 gasoline.” He went on to predict, with chilling accuracy, that the United States would “lose” the war after China and Russia joined the fight on Iran’s behalf. The humiliating defeat would “end” Trump’s presidency, the pundit wrote, adding: “None of these are far-fetched predictions.”
It goes without saying that Carlson was right. Of course, his prediction about shape-shifting neocons traveling to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island to host a “fantasy war draft” party with other elite pedophiles to celebrate the conscription of young American soldiers who would soon be ordered to “die for Israel” seemed a little far-fetched at the time, but even that turned out to be true.
Tucker wasn’t the only esteemed Iranian sympathizer who got it right. “We are entering a nuclear war—the World War, the World War III, because the entire world is going to erupt,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) said the day after U.S. bombs fell on Iranian nuclear sites. Former NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III was also spot-on in his analysis. “Donald Trump just started World War III by bombing Iran,” he wrote. “Pray for us all.”
Fact check: As you might have noticed by now, none of these “World War III” doomsayers were right about anything. Most people have already forgotten about Operation Midnight Hammer and Iran’s telegraphed, performative response—a handful of missiles fired at a U.S. air base in Qatar with no reported casualties, as opposed to the thousands of American deaths Carlson predicted. Within days, Trump announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel that continues to hold. Gas prices have declined and stabilized at roughly $3 per gallon. U.S. stock markets hit record highs on Monday.
The decision to strike Iran did not, in fact, end Trump’s presidency. Carlson predicted Trump would suffer politically because striking Iran “would amount to a profound betrayal of his supporters.” Trump’s actual supporters didn’t see it that way. A poll taken immediately after the strike on Iran found that 90 percent of Trump voters approved of Trump’s decision. A YouGov poll published earlier this month found that 85 percent of Trump voters approved of his job performance, up slightly from 84 percent in mid-June before the attack. Trump’s support among Republicans has remained steady at 87 percent during that period, and has increased 6 percent among independents.
No one cared when Trump lashed out at “kooky Tucker Carlson” for failing to understand that “IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON,” or when he mocked the former Fox News host for no longer having a show on television. Carlson responded by conducting a softball interview with Masoud Pezeshkian, the president of Iran, who blamed his country’s (accurate) reputation for sponsoring terrorism on the “devilish machinations” of the “Israeli regime” as Tucker nodded along in agreement.
In an interview with NBC News last week, Carlson said he’s still waiting to see if the June 21 strike on Iran will trigger a third World War that America will lose. “I hope that, by the way, the bombing of the nuclear sites in Iran, which I did not support, I hope it works out great, and I’ll be grateful if it does,” he said. “And I’ll be the first to say I was wrong for the millionth time in my life.”