While a war against Iran remains deeply unpopular, the percentage of Americans who support its underlying logic and goals remains relatively high. The premises for wars in US discourse––whether it’s Iraq’s WMDs or Hamas’ mindless jihadist barbarity––are rarely in dispute, only the method to best contain or eliminate these existential enemies. Since Iran has not attacked the US directly (the Iraqi “Shia proxies” line is, for example, mostly a lie), and has killed fewer US civilians in the past 30 years than Israel has, building a casus belli to launch an attack on Iran has been difficult for war promoters. Absent a real threat, what one usually hears is a combination of vague reference to Iran-allied Shia militias attacking US troops in Iraq during the US Iraqi occupation (don’t ask why the US invaded both of Iran’s major neighbors), lines about Iran being the “largest exporter of terrorism in the world” (a braindead cliche that no one bothers to even explain anymore) and—the most popular and frightening—that Iran is perpetually on the brink of developing a nuclear weapon that “could” maybe, sort of, one day reach the United States. Pursuant to this latter talking point, the idea of Iran’s civilian nuclear energy program has effectively been weaponized and rendered menacing to Western audiences through many framing and rhetorical tricks, wearing down a public that has neither the time nor inclination to understand the nuances of nuclear policy.

This dynamic is reflected in a new a YouGov poll fielded by ReThink Media from February 2026 that shows 25% of Americans believe the patently false claim that Iran currently possesses nuclear weapons and 45% believe the also false, but slightly more subjective, claim that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program (“Iran does not have nuclear weapons but is working toward developing them,” as the poll question puts it). The annual threat assessment published in March 2025 by the US Director of National Intelligence clearly stated: “We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” A finding affirmed it again just this week. Thus, only 5% of Americans agree with the consensus of the US intelligence community that Iran neither has nuclear weapons nor an active nuclear weapons program.

So why is the public so grossly misinformed on such a basic, consequential fact?

The media campaign designed to convince Americans Iran has a nuclear weapon or is always, asymptotically, about to and is, by implication or explicit demagoguery, going to nuke Davenport, Iowa, exists on what we will call a Gradient of Nuclear Iran Bullshit. It most often does not rely on explicit lying (though there is that), but usually innuendo and repetition of certain scare phrases. Let us examine this Gradient of Nuclear Iran Bullshit to get a sense of how the American public is misled, and has been for 20+ years.

Here is the Gradient of Nuclear Iran Bullshit in order from least false to most false:

• “Iran’s nuclear program.” This phrasing is technically true but, through nonstop repetition and how our reptile brain interprets the word “nuclear,” it misleads in the aggregate. Many will see the words “nuclear program” and correctly interpret this as Iran having a nuclear energy program, but most, as polls indicate, see it as a form of nuclear weapons development. A more accurate phrasing would be “Iran’s civil nuclear program,” or “Iran’s nuclear energy program.” But this wouldn’t steer the media consumer into a state of panic so these more clarifying phrases are almost never used.
• “Iran’s nuclear weapons program.” This ispatently false, but can be tortured into being vaguely true in some metaphysical sense via theory of mind assessments of future Iranian intent. US intelligence, as I will detail, has repeatedly said Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon since it abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
• “Iran’s nuclear weapons” or “Iran’s nuclear arsenal”. Factually false, no wiggle room whatsoever. A claim about the existence of Iranian nukes that is not supported by any mainstream expert and not a claim ever made by US intelligence or even Israeli intelligence. An outright lie.

Iran’s “nuclear program”

As mentioned, this is technically true but is generally misleading. Given that 1 in 4 Americans falsely believe Iran possesses nuclear weapons it’s safe to assume a great deal of this ignorance is downstream from the constant repetition of “Iran” and “nuclear” in the same sentences nonstop over the last 20 years. Despite the fact that 31 countries use nuclear energy, 22 of whom do so without also developing nuclear weapons, it is heavily implied that Iran must be doing so for nefarious purposes.

Iran’s “nuclear weapons program”

As I’ve been detailing since 2017, US media frequently refers to a nonexistent Iranian “nuclear weapons program.” Here are just a few examples causally tossed out by Western media in the past month:

• New York Times: “Iran’s nuclear weapons program” (3/4/26)
• ABC News: “Iran’s nuclear weapons program” (3/4/25)
• Washington Post | Opinion: Iran’s “nuclear-weapons program” (3/17/26)
• Fox 2: “Iran’s nuclear weapons program” (2/28/26)
• The Independent: “nuclear weapons program” (3/2/28)

60 Minutes even lent this falsehood credibility when reporter Scott Pelley repeated it during a March 1 puff interview with “Prince Reza Pahlavi, a leader of the opposition to the Islamic Republic.”

“What would happen to the nuclear weapons program?” a somber Pelley asked Pahlavi—without mentioning that Iran has no nuclear weapons program. During last year’s bombing of Iran, as I noted at the time, CNN’s Jake Tapper twice lied about this nonexistent “nuclear weapons program.”

Many will see the words “nuclear program” and correctly interpret this as Iran having a nuclear energy program, but most, as polls indicate, see it as a form of nuclear weapons development.

On June 21, Jake Tapper asked Anderson Cooper, “Even though President Trump did describe the strikes on the three sites—Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan—as having been completely and totally obliterated, really it’s a question of how accurate that is. Is there any of this weapons program left at all?”

But Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, according to the US government’s own intelligence. The 2025 threat assessment, as mentioned above, says so, as does an intelligence assessment leaked last year to CNN and the Wall Street Journal that found Iran had no “nuclear weapons program.” According to CNN, US intel consensus was that “not only was Iran not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, it was also up to three years away from being able to produce and deliver one to a target of its choosing, according to four people familiar with the assessment.”

This inconvenient fact did not stop Tapper from repeating the false claim. On June 13, 2025, Tapper again referred to the “Iranian nuclear weapons program” live on air. He repeated this lie again just this Sunday. It doesn’t matter if it’s untrue, it seems true to Tapper and, most important of all, it needs to be true.

The total lack of a “nuclear weapons program” is even more apparent in the wake of Trump’s June 2025 bombing of Iran’s nuclear energy sites. As the New York Times reported just prior to Trump’s February 2026 attack, not only do they not have an active nuclear weapons program, they couldn’t build one even if they wanted to:

But American officials and international weapons inspectors said that was not the case, largely because the U.S. and Israeli strikes last June badly damaged Iran’s three main nuclear sites, Natanz, Fordo and Isfahan.

Those attacks made it far more difficult for Iran to access the near-bomb-grade fuel it would need to produce a nuclear weapon quickly. Even if it were to dig it out, experts said, it would take many months — perhaps more than a year — to turn it into a warhead.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, most of the nearly 1,000 pounds of Iran’s 60 percent enriched uranium is buried at Isfahan. There is little evidence that the Iranians are digging out the deep-underground containers in which the uranium is stored.

And without that stockpile, which would have to be further enriched to 90 percent purity before it could be fabricated into a bomb, it is nearly impossible for the Iranian military to produce a weapon.

So Iran, according to the US intelligence assessment, has no nuclear weapons program, hasn’t had one in well over 20 years, and couldn’t contrive one in any reasonable time period even if they wanted to. But this hasn’t stopped the phrase “Iran’s nuclear weapons program” from being used on CNN 104 times and MSNOW/MSNBC 74 times since 2009.

Iran’s “nuclear weapons”

Outright falsehoods about Iran currently possessing “nuclear weapons” are rare but still happen. One recent high-profile example was a March 1 CBS News social media post promoting the aforementioned 60 Minutes interview with Reza Pahlavi. The post went one step further, outright inventing nuclear weapons that don’t exist:

After a wave of criticism, CBS did delete the tweet and repost it with a correction: “Editor’s note: This post replaces an earlier post that needed a clarification. 60 Minutes was referring to Iran’s nuclear program in the post, and not nuclear weapons.” Last June, a New York Times breaking news headline falsely stated that Iran had nuclear weapons:

The UN nuclear watchdog did not, of course, say anything about Israel destroying a “weapons” facility, nuclear or otherwise. But the Times put this distortion in the headline, and propped it up with the weasel phrase “weapons-grade uranium” in the text of the article, despite it being a characterization no one from the UN used; nor is potential “weapons-grade uranium” the same thing as a “weapons facility” as the process from “weapons-grade” to an actual weapon involves years of development.

Likely 2028 presidential candidate and Governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro has been on a media tour lately heavily implying Iran possesses nuclear weapons, but doing so with just enough plausible deniability to weasel out of owning his innuendo.

In an interview with The Pulse with Josh Green on March 13, Shapiro said: “[Trump] sent us in [to Iran] first because he claimed we needed to go getthe nuclear weapons. Well, seven months earlier, six months, whatever it’s been, he claimed that they destroyed all the nuclear arsenal.” Later that night on Real Time with Bill Maher, Shapiro repeated a similar line when discussing Trump’s Iran attack. “Was the plan to go after the nuclear weapons,the weaponshe said by the way were destroyed seven months ago.”The next day, in an interview with Pod Save America, Shapiro said: “[Trump] told us [his objective] was to go after their nuclear arsenal.”

Iran is an Official Enemy state and the editorial standards for fairness and clarity lie several feet below the floor.

Shapiro does not appear to be questioning the premise that Iran possesses “nuclear weapons,” but rather Trump’s claim they were “destroyed.” When I reached out to Shapiro’s office for comment, his press secretary, Rosie Lapowsky, insisted Shapiro was simply summing up the president’s position and was not endorsing the premise that Iran possesses nuclear weapons. “The Governor was not alleging that [Iran currently possesses nuclear weapons],” she said in an email. “The Governor’s knowledge is based solely on the public comments by the President and his Administration and national security officials.”

When repeatedly asked if Shapiro believes, as a matter of fact, Iran currently possesses nuclear weapons, Lapowsky would not say either way, only insisting that his office was not saying they did but were summarizing “public comments by the President and his Administration and national security officials.”

One is welcome to review the relevant clips above and determine if they believe Shapiro is simply relaying allegations by the president, or critiquing his process of destroying a nuclear weapon Shapiro seems to believe currently exists. It’s worth noting that Trump has made at least one off-the-cuff claim Iran currently possesses nuclear weapons, but has never said so in a formal speech, and no one in the intelligence community has ever claimed they do. Indeed, the overwhelming argument from the administration is that the US needs to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, which wouldn’t make much sense if they already possessed them, much less—as Shapiro stated—possessed a “nuclear arsenal.”

What’s likely going on, as is the case with much of the Gradient of Nuclear Iran Bullshit, is that for those fearmongering over Iran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons and/or weapons program there is incentive to drift into more maximalist claims and no institutional systems in place to push back when this scare regime drifts into misleading statements or outright lies. No one’s ever lost a job or been deplatformed for making up a nonexistent Iranian “nuclear weapons” or “nuclear weapons program.” And certainly no one’s ever been scolded by an editor for using the term “Iran’s nuclear program” when “Iran’s energy program” is far more clear and avoids misleading a confused and distracted public. Iran is an Official Enemy state and the editorial standards for fairness and clarity lie several feet below the floor. These nuances are not trivial; they convey and propagandize very different concepts, and their nonstop repetition without proper context has no doubt contributed to the fact that 70% of the American public has totally false beliefs about the nature of Iran’s “nuclear ambitions.”

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