A retired US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst's claim that General Dan Caine physically blocked Donald Trump from launching a nuclear strike on Iran has racked up nearly 2 million views online in under 24 hours, yet fact-checkers say no official record of the alleged Saturday meeting exists.
The allegation came from Larry C Johnson on the 'Judging Freedom' podcast, hosted by former judge Andrew Napolitano. Johnson said Trump tried to 'use the nuclear codes' during an emergency session at the White House, and that Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stood up and invoked his authority as head of the military to stop him. Political commentator Jimmy Dore amplified the clip on X on 20 April, where it went viral within hours.
According to retired CIA analyst Larry Johnson: During an emergency meeting On Saturday Trump tried to “use the nuclear codes” on Iran and he was stopped by General Dan Caine.According to Johnson “there is seriously something wrong with Trump”:pic.twitter.com/9x5LONnnsm
Lead Stories searched Google News and Yahoo News for matching reports andfound none. The site concluded that had such a confrontation actually happened and been verified by insiders, major outlets would have covered it heavily. The White House, the Pentagon, and Caine's office have not responded. Johnson himself attributed the account to 'one report coming out of the White House' without naming a source.
An X post from the account @JaokooMoses that sparked the most aggressive version of the rumour, claiming Caine 'stormed out' of the meeting, has been labelled false.
CONFIRMED: The US joint Chiefs of staff Air Force Gen. Dan Caine stormed out of an emergency meeting with Trump. Insiders indicate that Trump wanted to invoke the nuclear codes as a deterrence against Iran but Caine refused and invoked the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice.
The claim landed in a moment when friction between Trump and Caine was already documented. AWashington Poststory published on 22 February 2026 laid out the chairman's concerns about the scale, complexity, and potential US casualties of a major Iran operation. Caine was confirmed by the Senate as chairman in April 2025, the first person appointed to the role without previously holding a four-star rank.
That tension has surfaced publicly. On 8 April, Cainetold reportersat the Pentagon that a ceasefire was 'a pause', not peace, a framing that sat uneasily with Trump's 7 April Truth Social post warning that 'a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.'
🚨 🚨 TRUMP: a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.pic.twitter.com/t0SArSODAN
Amnesty Internationalcondemned the threatas a breach of international humanitarian law.
Source: International Business Times UK
