Tucker’s Unhinged WW3 Conspiracy Theory has Gone Absolutely Nuclear Online | The Tom Bilyeu Show

Tucker Carlson claimed on X that the Trump administration could be days from using a nuclear weapon against Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain complex, citing an unnamed source who said Benjamin Netanyahu calls Donald Trump daily and expects a decision by November 7. Carlson’s account portrays Trump as reluctant and Netanyahu as pushing for a strike. The host said Axios had also reported Netanyahu pressed Trump to attack Iran, but questioned Carlson’s central conclusion: even if the target is difficult to reach with conventional weapons, that does not make nuclear use likely. Israeli intelligence was said to indicate centrifuges had been moved into tunnels buried 80–100 meters in granite.

The host warned that a ground-burst nuclear strike could spread radioactive rock and soil, contaminate drinking water and create a crisis affecting tens of millions. Fallout could threaten U.S. partners around the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, while a conflict could compound disruption to oil markets amid tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz. He also argued that U.S. nuclear use could weaken non-proliferation norms and raise escalation risks in other conflicts, including Russia and Ukraine, India and Pakistan, and North and South Korea. Trump said on October 16, “I wouldn’t use nuclear. We don’t have to,” and the host said Trump, through Marco Rubio, still favored diplomacy.

The host judged renewed conventional hostilities more plausible than either a nuclear strike or an all-out ground invasion. He expected Trump might instead seek an exit, call the conflict a stalemate and continue economic pressure—an “Anaconda approach.” A ground invasion, he said, could bring heavy U.S. casualties and political costs, though he acknowledged his case against that scenario was not strongly supported by data. He described sanctions as having been applied in July, temporarily lifted and then reapplied, and cited estimates of Iranian inflation ranging from 90% to 300%. Reports that hard-line Iranian figures may favor negotiations and that opposition groups are arming themselves remained unconfirmed; he considered a prolonged stalemate that wears Iran down more likely than a quick resolution.

Tom Bilyeu said he was not currently very worried about non-state actors developing nuclear weapons, while cautioning that AI could lower barriers to dangerous capabilities. He inferred that fears about suitcase nuclear weapons leaving Russia in the 1990s may have been overstated because none had detonated, but acknowledged that this is not proof. He said his view could change within three years if AI began solving novel physics problems. Zagros Ozkin challenged Bilyeu’s earlier confidence about the chain of events and proliferation that could follow a hypothetical U.S. nuclear attack on Iran, calling the reasoning assumption-heavy; Bilyeu’s response was cut off in the discussion.

On markets, Bilyeu expected a sharp downturn in AI investment as lenders and investors apply stricter standards, not necessarily the collapse of AI or the failure of OpenAI or Anthropic. He said hedge funds had net-sold AI stocks for five sessions in October, reversing their net buying since the start of 2025, and sold roughly $20 billion in technology shares over two weeks. He described the move as capital rotation rather than a broad rejection of AI, but warned leverage could turn falling prices into forced selling. Fitch’s 6.3% private-credit default rate for the 12 months through September was a greater potential source of disorderly stress in his view; many of the 91 reported defaults involved extensions or deferred interest rather than bankruptcy, and pension and insurance funds were exposed.

The discussion also covered AI’s effect on established internet businesses: Reddit reportedly lost more than one million weekly Google search referrals in October, and its CEO blamed some of the decline on Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode. Reddit warned daily users could fall by double digits the next quarter, and its shares dropped 29% in a day. Bilyeu also described the prolonged Polish Constitutional Tribunal dispute as an example of political conflict becoming difficult to resolve when each side sees the other as an existential threat. In Michigan, Haley Stevens endorsed Republican Mike Rogers two days before the election after a dispute with Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign; the host noted that polls favored El-Sayed but cautioned that polling errors and low response rates make outcomes uncertain.