Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson made a bombshell claim on Sunday that the CIA has been spying on his text messages the Department of Justice could soon issue a warrant for his arrest.
Carlson posted a five-minute video over the weekend titled “We Discovered the CIA Is Reading Our Texts to Frame Us for a Crime,” which claims a government surveillance effort has targeted him for his communications with Iranian insiders before the U.S.-Israeli war began.
“The CIA is preparing some kind of criminal referral against me, a crime report to the Department of Justice, on the basis of a supposed crime I committed,” Carlson said.
“What’s that crime? Well, talking to people in Iran before the war,” he said. “They read my texts.”
Carlson claimed the government intends to charge him under the Foreign Agents Registration Act — a 1938 law that requires individuals acting as paid agents of foreign governments to register with the DOJ.
He flatly denied acting as an agent of Iran.
“I’m not an agent of a foreign power,” Carlson said. “Unlike a lot of people commenting on U.S. politics and global affairs, I have only one loyalty and that’s the United States and have never acted against it.”
He also denied receiving any foreign money. “Don’t need it, don’t want it,” he said.
Carlson said his texts with Iranian contacts were part of his job as a journalist.
“It’s my job to talk to everybody all the time and try to figure out what’s happening around the world,” he said. “I’m an American. I can talk to anybody.”
“Legally, I think, the case is ludicrous, and I doubt it’ll even become a case,” he said.
The New York Times reported Carlson met with Trump three times inside the White House before the war began, and was actively lobbying against the attack.
Critics said President Donald Trump may have known Carlson was communicating with Iranian government officials and used him to relay misinformation to the Iranian military and top commanders to make them vulnerable to America’s surprise attack.
Take a look —
The story gets even juicier. The word is Tucker is invited to WH by Trump. President tells him not to worry. We are bluffing. We have no intension of bombing Iran ever again. It's all a bluff to bring Iran to table. Tucker runs back to Mullahs & tells them our plan. CIA is…
— Wayne Root – Wayne Allyn Root – TV & Radio Host (@RealWayneRoot) March 15, 2026
Carlson claimed that his criticism of Israel has made him a target inside the American intelligence community.
There are “some people who are mad at me for my views about Israel and they have some latitude,” he said. “One of the reasons they pass on criminal complaints in effect to law enforcement is to justify warrants for spying. And so that is an absolutely real thing.”
Journalist Glenn Greenwald, who interviewed Carlson on Friday before the video was posted, corroborated the story. Greenwald wrote that Carlson told him off-camera about the CIA referral ahead of the broadcast, and said U.S. intelligence had access to Carlson’s private communications.
Neither the CIA nor the DOJ has publicly confirmed or denied Carlson’s claims. No charges have been filed as of this writing.
The story comes as Carlson has broken sharply from President Trump and the broader MAGA movement over the Iran war. Carlson called Operation Epic Fury “absolutely disgusting and evil” and argued the strikes were carried out solely on behalf of Israel.
Trump responded by publicly cutting ties with Carlson.
In a lengthy conversation just now, President Trump hit back at Tucker Carlson who called the Iran war “absolutely disgusting and evil.”
"Tucker has lost his way,” Trump told me. “I knew that a long time ago, and he's not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our…
— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) March 5, 2026