US President Donald Trump told erstwhile allies Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson in the Oval Office early last year that he would not go to war with Iran, according to a new book excerpted by The Guardian on Friday.

The excerpt from “Regime Change,” by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, was published after the US and Iran this week reached a memorandum of understanding to end the regional conflict, over the objections of Israeli officials.

“‘They want you to go to war with Iran,'” Carlson told the president, according to the excerpt, which did not specify which “they” Carlson was referring to.

“‘We’re not doing that,’ Trump answered,” the book reportedly said.

The book also reportedly quoted Trump as telling Carlson: “I don’t think there’s ever been an American president as powerful as I am.”

“Struck by this hubris,” Carlson replied that “certainly not since” four-term World War II-era president Franklin Delano Roosevelt had the US seen such a powerful leader, the book said, according to The Guardian.

“‘Really, the only thing that could wreck it is war with Iran,’” Carlson reportedly added.

Carlson, a right-wing Israeli critic whose popular podcast has peddled antisemitic conspiracies, had already criticized Trump at the time for failing to rein in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza, The Guardian said.

Nevertheless, the president continued to “solicit Carlson’s advice, believing he still had sway over a significant portion of the base,”........

© The Times of Israel