The Stack: Trump Iran War Debate Tucker Carlson Regret and the Cost of Truth
Tucker Carlson says he’s “tormented” by supporting Donald Trump as the U.S. confronts Iran—but is that the right conclusion? In today’s episode, Todd Huff pushes back on the idea that opposing war means avoiding it at all costs. Instead, he frames the situation through a sobering reality: sometimes the choice isn’t between peace and conflict, but between conflict now or catastrophe later.
Todd walks through Carlson’s comments, breaking down the difference between being wrong and intentionally misleading, while also challenging the assumption that Trump has betrayed his America First principles. If Iran is truly on the brink of nuclear capability, Todd argues, then action—however undesirable—may be the only responsible path.
This episode goes beyond headlines, digging into deeper truths about leadership, moral clarity, and the tension between idealism and reality. It’s a conversation about what it really means to stand for truth when the stakes couldn’t be higher.
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📰 Stack Links
Tucker Carlson expresses regret over Trump support amid Iran tensions
How conservative media figures are reacting to Iran escalation
Opinion: When media figures apologize after the damage is done
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📝 Transcript: Trump Iran War Debate Tucker Carlson Regret and the Cost of Truth
The Todd Huff Show – April 23, 2026
Host: Todd Huff
Todd Huff: All right my friends it is a pleasure as usual to be here with you today. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Todd Huff show the Todd cast as we call it if you're listening on well to the podcast or whatever you listen my friends I welcome you to today's program we give you the full digital version with all the receipts and background information additional articles. That's in the inner circle email it's totally free that goes out each and every day if you would like to get that all you have to do is text the word truth to 317 785 10 30 317 785 1030 you know every time I say the phone number what you can text your questions and things to that as well every time I say the phone number I'm reminded of the stupid little joke that maybe mathematicians tell.
Todd Huff: Or dads tell is dad joke or whatever. The old saying that says why is six afraid of seven because seven eight nine I don't know why as a dad I was a lover of dad jokes I love this it's not seven eight nine though it's seven eight five which I guess seven can eat five if it wants as well but anyway that's how you can communicate with this program. And you'll find that's how you can get other information about things here from our advertisers and sponsors which we're gonna unveil in the days and weeks to come so it's good to be here thanks for joining us friends.
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Todd Huff: I've always been very serious about this part of my job here which is what my job is I see it. As I see it my job the mission here at the program is to help others hear and receive truth now I say I say look we don't have it all figured out here but it's tempting to under to think that we do I understand if you tune in you think man they've got it together over there but there are some things there are some things that listen I don't understand everything in all seriousness here for a moment but there are things that are true there are things that are true and I think it's an undeniable truth that when truth is not spoken when truth is not constantly shared there are voids that are created. Questions and the holes and people's thinking and those holes are easily easily and quickly filled with lies lies that a lot of people who are responsible well I say responsible who have taken it upon themselves to create a narrative they would love to fill those voids with things that are not true to get you to get me to get Americans to conclude what they want us to conclude which is of course the founding fathers were crazy and terrible people which includes the notion that America is not good as founded and that we need things like a new Bill of Rights which instead of telling us the rights and liberties we have well that's that's an antiquated notion some of these pointy headed liberal knuckleheads and elites would tell you today I heard of heard him in my courses in college 20 some years ago. Heck getting closer to 30 actually started 30 years ago they think that there should be a Bill of Rights saying what the government should provide which you have a right to get from the government which is antithetical to our Bill of Rights our concept of liberty and limited government and so forth these people love power they love they love the worldview that is again antithetical to the one that this nation is built upon and they hate politicians who talk about America first as we've seen with Trump loving liberty just the whole American experiment they don't like it and they have a vested interest sometimes because it affects their pocketbook sometimes because it affects their power and control sometimes simply because they want to be in the in crowd.
Todd Huff: And the in crowd seems to always be on the side of loving big government and there's a lot of factors that go into this sort of stuff and dare I say there's also the group that hates God I call those folks the extreme Godless radical left they hate God they hate truth they hate God's ways they hate the liberty that he's created they hate moral truth and they hate all those things and they want to unravel any system that is built upon that that references that anything that's connected to that they want to see it all on route and there's different groups so not everybody falls squarely in you know it's not this is people have their own reasons sometimes people just truly are ignorant as to how beautiful of a thing we have here in this in this great nation. And so my job as I see it is to come on here every day and try to expound upon that try to share that try to articulate it and I use stories of news events to talk about it typically I like to use those stories to springboard into deeper truths not not just I I gotta tell you and I've shared this before I don't really like I don't really like politics that might surprise people I love talking about the big ideas and why these things matter I don't get a lot of pleasure out of talking about he said she said I just it just feels to me I really want to get to the heart of the problem and oftentimes it's well beyond those sorts of narratives and let's be honest when it comes to saying something that happened in the inner workings of our government or behind closed doors it's really impossible to know who to believe.
Todd Huff: But what isn't impossible to believe is the truth the truth which supersedes all of these things the truth which is is planted in our hearts which is there I think for us to understand and develop to some degree some basic truths but also some things that are revealed to us things that we have learned throughout history throughout the types of governments that have existed throughout the types of worldviews that we've seen why things work and things don't work all that sort of stuff and I try to unpack that here in a way that's I don't know digestible and entertaining and fun to some degree but but thought provoking as well and that's what I try to do on this program and as part of that you know I have I have of course read and listen to and studied some great conservative thinkers. Of course you know that I'm a huge believer in the importance of a biblical worldview that's critically important in fact yesterday I'll tell you my family we we do we read we do a Bible study my family my three kids my wife and I every day and yesterday we're going through the Psalms and typically depending upon the length of the Psalm we'll do one or two there might have been times when there's been several in a row that are small we've done three yesterday we read the longest book or excuse me the longest chapter in the Bible Psalm 119 there's 176 I believe verses and we read that yesterday it's a beautiful Psalm and we talk about it and we try to answer questions and you know we try to teach the kids to think about these things on their own not just memorizing memorizing is fine I'm not here to bash it and not just memorize something but wrestle with the text wrestle with the truth what is this saying how does this apply to me what does this tell me.
Todd Huff: About the creator of the universe or those sorts of things and and to have an understanding of why not just to be someone who's programmed you better think this go memorize this and come out and tell me what it says no no no let's talk about this let's understand that there are there are there's tension here when you read the Bible there's tension when you read stories in the Bible about people in fact my one of my favorite stories in the Bible is the story of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego and I don't want to get into this and I don't want to I mean I do part of me does I don't want to turn this into a Bible study today I'm just I'm just talking about truth and the importance of these things and just wrestling the tension now because there is tension here but there's a story of these three young boys Shadrach Meshach Abednego they were they were taken away by the Babylonians in exile. And they were not allowed they were not supposed to be bowing down to Yahweh they were supposed to be bowing down to this king named Nebuchadnezzar and Nebuchadnezzar had made this giant statue and basically said anytime you hear music being played you're supposed to bow down and worship the statue and these three young boys and they were young boys by the way teenagers it's believed they wouldn't bow down and they got in trouble by this listen he and he liked these boys hey guys if you don't do this I'm going to have to do something about it and they said oh king we're not going to bow down to you I mean I'm paraphrasing here we serve Yahweh the God of Israel and we're not going to bow down to your statue and so it had been declared that hey whoever doesn't do this is going to be thrown into this incinerator this fiery furnace as it was called.
Todd Huff: And again the music was played these boys didn't didn't kneel the king was furious they heated up the incinerator multiple times hotter than it was ever intended to be turned up to and the tension was real and they said to him I love this part of the scripture they said again I'm paraphrasing I wasn't necessarily even prepared to say this today as I'm just talking with you but they said to him oh king our God is able to save us from this fiery furnace but even if he doesn't even if he doesn't we're still not going to submit to what you're telling us because it is objectively wrong according to what God tells us to do and so the story goes that Nebuchadnezzar threw these three young men in the fiery furnace and then he realizes they were looking through the window that there were no longer just three people in the furnace. First of all why was anyone standing there because the furnace had been so hot that one of the guards had basically been incinerated when the door was opened but there were three people standing inside the furnace but not just three they when they looked closely they saw there was a fourth and as Nebuchadnezzar said one of those appears to look like the son of a son of the gods or some I don't know the term exactly but basically Jesus came and saved them not even the hair was singed on their head now there's tension there right there's tension there because you can believe the truth and you can pay the consequences for standing up for the truth God might save you God is under no obligation to save us from that it's intense and there's a lot of tension and there's a lot of tension when it comes to the truth accepting the truth because there are absolute enemies to it.
Todd Huff: They hate it and at the core I'm telling you they hate this because they do not find themselves coming into agreement with the truth the ultimate truth is that there is a creator and that that creator has established a moral law and that he is the one in charge and that we're not God of our lives we don't get to decide what is right and wrong we don't get to redefine what God has made for example we don't get to redefine what marriage is just as an example we don't get to redefine what gender is we can try I mean we shouldn't try but you can try and you can play games of make believe but it comes into an immediate conflict with truth and reality and this is where we live today we live in this and you could pick multiple issues and some issues are spiritual in nature some I think are just maybe more things that we've learned from just the way that the world works about economics and so forth still true but we have this wrestling with truth.
Todd Huff: And that's what we try to do here on this program is to help people hear the truth receive the truth and build upon the truth right just to accept it and to help live their lives according to it to help build this society and our government upon it who wants to have a society a government built upon some of the nonsense you see what happens we had it under the last administration where nothing was real you could just make up anything that you wanted again I immediately think of gender and all these other things and you can deny truth and deny the impact of inflation and deny how inflation is tied directly to government spending and then acting shocked when inflation is radically high because of course we spent money like it was burning a hole in our pocket and so forth but as I've studied and read and all these things a lot of things but I don't follow people really closely currently.
Todd Huff: I used there was one person I did follow closely even when I started this program and that was Rush and there's a reason that I didn't listen I'm not saying I never heard some of these people I'm going to mention somebody here's why I'm saying this but there's a reason I didn't I don't listen to a lot of other stuff I read some things I think about some things and I come and talk about what I what I think I need to talk about for the day probably hit a home run with it most days some days maybe not but the point here is that that's how I do this and so I don't listen to other voices because I think sometimes if I listen to other voices they might end up some of that might end up coming through and I want it to be my genuine perspective.
Todd Huff: And so now listen to Rush because Rush was truly the best who ever did this everybody else was playing for a distant second and I mean a very very distant second but anyway so I didn't know this until I read this is the headline in the New York Times Tucker Carlson says he is tormented by his past support for Trump now listen I'm not probably as familiar with Tucker Carlson as most of you are I don't know if that's true I just don't listen regularly but I'm aware of obviously Tucker Carlson I mean my awareness and my memory of Tucker Carlson goes way back in time back to when he was on some of those news shows when he would wear a bow tie like maybe like face the nation I don't know if it was that one but it was something like that I remember years and years ago seeing Tucker Carlson on there. And then of course he had a bit of a I don't know metamorphosis or he developed and changed as we all do to some degree and of course he ends up with a show on Fox and then he gets into hot water with Dominion voting systems there and all this sort of stuff and lawsuits and everything else and ends up parting ways with Fox starts a podcast and has been has been doing that now for some period of time apparently he was talking with his brother on the program his brother Buckley who was a former speechwriter for Trump and Tucker Carlson said he's tormented by his past support for Trump now I've got all this in today's stack of stuff which again goes out through our inner circle daily email if you want to get this stuff and read it or you can Google it that's fine too we just put this at your fingertips if that's easier for you.
Todd Huff: If you want to get the newsletter it's free text truth T R U T H truth to 3177851030 and you'll get this stuff but I'm going to read a part of this today New York Times here's the sub headline I want to say I'm sorry for misleading people said the conservative commentator who has broken sharply with the president over the war in Iran written here by Tim Balk this was written a couple of days ago here we go Tucker Carlson who was often at Donald J Trump's side during the 2024 presidential campaign is now expressing remorse for that support saying he will long be tormented by his role helping Mr Trump return to the White House Mr Carlson a titan of conservative media who has broken sharply with Mr Trump over the war with Iran acknowledged that he was part of the reason this is happening right now referring to the conflict.
Todd Huff: It's not enough to say well I changed my mind or like oh this is bad I'm out Mr Carlson said in an episode of his podcast released Monday wrestle with our own consciences Mr Carlson said on the podcast speaking with his brother Buckley a former speechwriter for Mr Trump will be tormented by it for a long time I will be and I want to say I'm sorry for misleading people so I'm well I'll read a little bit more here as I'm looking at where I want to stop Mr Carlson a former Fox News host and a longtime opponent of American foreign interventions had feuded with Mr Trump and his allies for weeks over the war which most Americans oppose according to opinion polls he appeared particularly appalled by a threat Mr Trump made to Iran on social media on Easter Sunday that the country would be quote living in hell if it did not open the Strait of Hormuz the vital shipping route that has been clogged during the war.
Todd Huff: After the post Mr Carlson urged White House officials to stand up to the president saying that Mr Trump's behavior was quote evil all right so it's what I want to unpack a little bit here today we've talked a little bit about some of these things we've talked about the tweets the posts and everything else but I wanted to dig a little bit deeper into this today and talk about this as openly and as honestly as I can I don't see it this way at all I don't say at all I can understand where he's coming from and there's things that I agree with Tucker Carlson on but I don't agree with this conclusion I also as you have heard me say before I marvel at some folks inability and I don't mean this as an insult I just marvel at the inability to still after all of these years not understand some of the basic ways in which Trump works with some of these reactions to his social media posts and so and so forth.
Todd Huff: As I've said before and I'll say again Iran with a nuclear weapon is infinitely worse than anything President Trump can say anything my friends I got to take a break though quick time out you're listening here to conservative not bitter talk I'm your host Todd Huff back in just a minute well done back my friends it is again an absolute pleasure to be here talking about Tucker Carlson's comments about Donald Trump saying he'll be tormented by his support for him since Trump is now of course engaged in this war with Iran continue with that here in just a moment but friends if you're curious about kratom or just trying to figure out who to trust let me introduce you to Christopher's Organic Botanicals family run company they offer natural lab tested kratom not the synthetic junk that has given kratom a bad name Christopher's is about real kratom that's responsibly sourced that's tested for purity.
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Todd Huff: You know when I think of misleading and maybe this is splitting hairs I don't know but misleading to me lying for example lying is misleading right you mislead somebody but to me to tell a lie it's typically in my mind and my thinking it's an intentional act it's an intentional thing to deceive it doesn't just mean that I'm wrong about something so when I when I hear misled people I think lie I think deceit I think intentional when I hear someone say I just I was wrong I misunderstood something I got this factually incorrect that feels that feels better to me than saying someone was misled but regardless I don't know exactly how he means that and he's he's saying this because of his support for Donald Trump and of course he's really saying this because he's against war and by the way I'm against war.
Todd Huff: But here's what I think some people still don't fully I don't want to say grasp because Tucker Carlson's clearly a very intelligent guy but just haven't really come to full terms with is that if if someone is is hellbent on creating conflict at some point the only choice the other side has is to decide who's going to bear the cost of this so if you're in a I don't know if you're on the school playground and the bully has backed some kid into the corner and has taken his lunch money and is pulling his fist back at some point we either decide the violence has been decided at that point again it's a metaphor it's not perfect but you get the idea he's about to punch this little dude in the face he's a big bully and you've got the story of the other kid that the other kid on the playground that intervenes comes in and steps in but the decision for violence has been made by the bully.
Todd Huff: And so the sane people the people who are not going to aggressively just go out and look for people to abuse as Iran does by the way the sane people have to say I can't let that happen because drawing a fist back on the playground as you're about to take the lunch money not you but as the bully is about to take the lunch money of the smaller kid or whatever that's where we are with these nuclear weapons it's like it's like the bully on the playground telling the kid all day hey at recess today I'm going to take your lunch money as he passes him in the hall hey I can't wait for 10 30 this morning because I'm taking your lunch money little dude right as he passes him in the hallway that's death to America death to Israel pursuit of nuclear weapons you know maybe this kid you've seen him in fights on the playground before right I mean that's what we've got with Iran.
Todd Huff: And so he is he's clearly got the intention he's he's fueled by hatred for you for whatever reason the bully hates the kid he's going to take his lunch money and and here he is he's he's he's got the means he's got the opportunity lunch is coming up and so the violence is going to happen so what's what's going to happen here for some people I guess they think it's noble to just let somebody take your lunch money I guess I don't think that way I don't know where people get these things I don't I don't know that I understand it should be avoided at all cost that's what we taught our kids in fact I remember when our young our oldest now he's 16 soon to be 17 when he was a little guy he was we were going to church and he was we were taking him to the farm is what they call it there and little kids are in there for you know the Bible stories and the games and all that whatever they're doing and there was a kid that he said was I don't know pushing him down or had hit him or something like that and I told him I said if he does it again you got to hit him back and he looked at me like I was a crazy guy.
Todd Huff: And I said I don't want you to get him down and pound him I don't want I want to I don't want to ground and pound I don't want any unnecessary stuff but if he's going to do this you're going to have you're going to have to stop him this is a life lesson and I remember taking him into that farm that morning and I told the people there I said listen there's a little boy here my son says his name is this I said I don't know anything other than what my son says I just want you to know what I told him and he he says this kid's been hitting him and pushing him or something like that and I said I told him to hit him back I said I don't want him to get in trouble if you got any trouble with somebody talk to me because that's what I told him and they nodded when they heard the name of the little boy they said that's that may not that that sounds like a very possible thing especially knowing our son who's really like he's he's just it's it's an absolute last option for him so anyway that's again the same similar sort of thing except for instead of just a bloody lip or a black eye we're talking about the annihilation of an entire people group we're talking about.
Todd Huff: They're talking about negotiations right now with Iran are incredibly difficult and they don't have we don't think weaponry although or complete nuclear weapons but we they're incredibly close we believe and the Iranian military leaders have hinted at having some news for Trump saying we're going to reveal our hand our cards later are here very soon to show them that the military game the military game of cards that we're playing is going to change we're going to show our hand here and so that's what it comes down Iran has has decided there's going to be violence it's unfortunate I wish it wasn't the case but now what do we do now what do we do do we let the violence be inflicted upon the people who aren't causing the problem the innocent bystander an entire people group that's now in the crosshairs of Iran or do we preemptively strike you don't have to love war to at least be sympathetic in understanding of that perspective it doesn't make you a hawk if you get information where you see they are a very short time away from having this weapon.
Todd Huff: It's now or never these people are pure evil this is not like this is not like some domestic conflict we have here again you know between two differing groups of people even even the Godless radical left we're not talking about that we're talking about people running the Islamic Republic of Iran who are incredibly abusive to their people they believe in Sharia law they believe in a theocracy they believe that you submit to Islam or else and that or else can mean at minimum you're a second class citizen who pays additional taxes for not being Muslim or you're I mean there's some brutal things up to and including death my friends that's the basis for why al Qaeda attacked America on 911 they believe that they were justified and had this holy command by Allah to destroy to kill the infidel we've seen this unfold it's right there for us to see and so now Tucker Carlson feels responsible because he's an avoid war at all cost guy which I am too not at all cost but at every conceivable cost and it's easy to criticize the war because down the road there's gonna come a time where people are gonna say will you supported this war and and at some point it's gonna be the narrative is gonna be that we shouldn't have had this the war but what we don't see or what many people refuse to see is that the alternative to the war may very well have been a nuclear Iran which again is incomprehensible for a free world that cannot be allowed to happen that is infinitely worse than what's happening right now.
Todd Huff: So timeout is needed for me more on this when I get back sit tight back in a minute welcome back my friends third and final segment of the program today talking about Tucker Carlson's comments about being tormented for his support of Donald J Trump going through that as fairly as I know how my friends and we'll conclude that here this segment but let's face it there's a lot of companies out there that don't share your Christian values the good news is you do not have to invest in them the folks at 4:8 Financial specialize in biblically responsible investing they help screen out companies that go against your faith your values and help create a plan that's tailored to your goals your purpose and they do all the heavy lifting and that allows you to focus on what really matters in your life and so all you have to do is take an assessment quick and easy assessment to see if your current investments align or to what degree they align with your values and your beliefs.
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Todd Huff: All right so just in the time we have here let me let me wrap up or get to as much of this as I can so so Tucker Carlson feels tormented he feels he's misled or at least I was directed his listeners his audience the wrong direction because of Trump because he's now engaged in this war with Iran Tucker Carlson is you know neoconservative in that sense where he says I'm you know no war at any cost and there's a lot of wars in America has been through recently and some are excusable and others are not and here we are Tucker's basically saying you know I wasn't just a passive participant he was out there promoting Trump supporting him all that sort of stuff and he would help explain Trump I think the way that he did anyway to his audience and helped connect those listeners with Trump of course many of them were there probably already the vast majority but Tucker Carlson is very much anti interventionist he's very anti Iraq style wars which I agree on that very skeptical of what's happening in the Middle East and interpreted America first as we don't get pulled in to something like this.
Todd Huff: So now that Trump has got us in this war with Iran which again I would say Trump got us into this war not because well only because he was forced to make decisions that neither option was good and this is the better option for reasons I kind of explained last segment and I would say even though Tucker Carlson would I suppose disagree he would say Trump got us into the war I would say Trump is trying to prevent the unthinkable and this war that we're in right now is the much preferred option to the idea of a nuclear Iran so he now regrets this to the point of saying he's he's tormented which is it's just interesting to me I don't does it feel like Trump lied about being against wars I mean Trump Trump obviously has talked about getting us out of wars or keeping us out of wars but again I to me I don't it's kind of self what I want to say self evident that there is a difference there's a difference between avoiding war and trying to prevent something catastrophic like a nuclear war.
Todd Huff: So in that sense again back to the analogies on the playground you see that if someone has chosen violence and they're looking to get a game changing weapon like nuclear nuclear weapons it changes the calculus of this so I don't know I to me this is overly dramatic I know he's very disappointed in this but in my way of thinking you can say I just I don't see how this is surprising I think if you like if you just look at it it's the surface and say Trump says we're not getting in any wars and now here we are bombing Iran then you say wow you know how did I not see that coming but this is I don't think contradictory at all because again context matters and the war that Trump is trying to keep us out of is a nuclear war with Iran and these might be the only reasonable steps that remain that are capable of preventing that and that just how you look at that determines I think where you fall on this particular topic I don't have any animosity towards Tucker I think he's completely wrong here I'm sympathetic I understand what he's saying and it's not completely invalid because I agree that I don't want to be in a war either but I also think that at some point realism has to come into the equation and you have to have a realization of the evil these aren't just people with different perspectives these are people and I know it's dangerous to paint people as evil but it's also dangerous to refuse to paint obvious evil as evil that's dangerous too and maybe that's the point of differentiation here but music is telling me it's time to wrap up today my friends thank you so much for listening have a wonderful day SDG.
