The Tucker Carlson Show
The Pentagon Didn’t Fire Dan Caldwell Over Leaks. They Fired Him for Opposing War With Iran.
Mon, 21 Apr 2025
Dan Caldwell was one of the strongest voices at the Pentagon opposing war with Iran. Then he was falsely accused of leaking classified documents and fired. Paid partnerships with: Beam: Get 47% off for a limited time using the code TUCKER at https://ShopBeam.com/Tucker Hallow prayer app: Get 3 months free at https://Hallow.com/Tucker PureTalk: Go to https://PureTalk.com/Tucker to make the switch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Dan Caldwell and why was he fired?
Dan Caldwell is a Marine Corps veteran who wound up until three days ago advising the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on military policy. He was one of the strongest voices in the U.S. government in the Trump administration against the war with Iran. And his rationale was simple. It's not in America's interest and many Americans will die and billions will be spent.
on a war we don't need to fight. And as someone who fought in Iraq, he was able to take that case to the principals with some force. Then three days ago, he was fired from the Pentagon. but not for his views on Iran, no. Dan Caldwell was fired because, reporters are told off the record, he had leaked classified documents to the media. But what were these classified documents exactly?
Well, no one at the Pentagon could know the answer to that because Dan Caldwell's phone was never examined, nor was he given a polygraph. So actually, beneath the headlines was nothing other than a false accusation. Was Dan Caldwell fired because he opposed the push to war with Iran? You decide. Here's Dan Caldwell.
So there is an enormous amount of pressure on this administration to participate in military action against Iran. And the president's position has been, I think, really clear for a long time, which is we don't want Iran to get nuclear weapons. That's bad for everybody. Yes. He sincerely believes that. He's against proliferation. He's very concerned about nuclear weapons. in general, I think.
But we would prefer, strongly prefer a diplomatic solution. And he's being attacked up and down, including by a lot of people in the administration and private. And really, we're trying to steer him toward military action. So leaving aside all the, you know, internecine fights going on, just as a real life matter, What would happen if the U.S.
participated in a military strike on Iran's nuclear sites?
So I strongly believe that for diplomacy to work, there needs to be a credible military option.
Yes.
And the president needs that. The Pentagon, where I used to work, needs to provide that. That is their role in American foreign policy, is to provide that leverage to for diplomatic solutions to work. Now, that's how it's supposed to work. Does it often work that way? Unfortunately, the last 30 years have shown us that it really doesn't.
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of military action against Iran?
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We strongly recommend it. It sounds to me like people who thought a lot about this have reached the conclusion that if we were to participate in a strike on their nuclear facilities, lots of Americans would die.
There is a real potential to that. Again, there's a saying in the military that no plan survives the first contact. And it's largely true that no assumptions survive the first contact. But it's still a significant risk that that could happen. And I think it's fair to say that that is weighing in the calculus of a lot of people in the administration.
So the choke point for a lot of the global oil trade is, you know, the very end, you know, the the terminus of the entrance to the Arabian Gulf, Persian Gulf, the Straits of Hormuz famously. And do you think Iran is capable of shutting that off?
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Chapter 3: How do diplomatic efforts play a role in U.S.-Iran relations?
I don't understand. So, I mean, in the last, I don't know, 22 years, 24 years, I guess, since 9-11, amazing. Our record with regime change in the Middle East has been 100% failure.
Yeah, and if you go to Libya, you go to Syria, yeah.
But failure on every level.
Yes, even Yemen, you can include Yemen because we back the old government before it collapsed and Yemen devolved into a civil war.
It hasn't made the United States safer or richer. It hasn't, by the way, I would argue, made our allies safer either, however much they may have wanted it. It hasn't been good for them either that I can see. And it's been a disaster for millions of people, human beings. in those countries, but mostly it hasn't helped the United States.
So how could you with a straight face advocate for yet another regime change war against a real country? That's not Libya, not Iraq. It's Iran. It's the Persian empire. Like, how could you say that out loud? Are they actually saying that out loud?
I mean, some of them do say it out loud, yes, is that they think, oh, the Shah's son has reemerged. I mean, this guy is the ultimate fail son, in my view. And then you have groups like the MEK, People's Mujahideen of Iran, who pay a lot of American politicians to advocate for them and advocate for regime change. They are...
essentially saying, hey, we have governments in waiting that can just swoop in there and everything will be fine if you just get rid of the mullahs. Where have we heard that before?
It's hard to believe this is actually real.
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Chapter 4: What are the risks of U.S. military involvement in the Middle East?
But this could kind of work. You know, this could kind of be like Tijuana, Mexico, right? um but um strip clubs yeah but five years later with the exception of al-assad every every place that i was at in iraq was under the control of isis
The places you were personally? Yes.
That you had been? From the city of Hit to South Sinjar, the mountain where the Uzettis were trapped, where there was those massacres and they enslaved... All the women? Yeah. I was... We were all around Mount Sinjar. We spent a lot of time in the Uzettis. Just...
very interesting people their religion is very interesting uh they worship what the west a lot of westerners would call the devil i don't think that's very accurate but they were very pro-american they were they were always dressed in colorful outfits and they come and wave at us and um whereas when you were in the sunni parts they just kind of ignore you and they're like when are you guys going to leave you know uh and so five years after that all had fallen apart and that was and a lot of those people who waved at you were dead or sex slaves
Yeah, I have a picture of myself on my Twitter with two young Yuzetti boys, and they're either dead or they're in a refugee camp. Maybe they were able to go back, but that's probably the reality of that, unfortunately.
Where were you five years later by the time you saw this?
I was working at Concerned Veterans for America, and that's where I met Pete Hegstuff. And one thing... you know, one thing that happened over those five years and continue to happen as I saw. So I did two things. I learned a lot about why the war started. Learned about the decisions that brought us there and I didn't have an overnight transition.
It took a while for it to happen, but I saw the impact on my community of veterans. Um, and it's only gotten worse since then.
What was the, I'm sure you could talk for hours on it, but if you could sum up the effect of the Iraq war on guys you knew, what would it be?
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