WASHINGTON — President Trump claimed in a new interview released Friday that he has to keep Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a little bit sane” while insisting he still has a “good” relationship with the leader of the Jewish state.
“If it weren’t for Donald Trump — and Bibi Netanyahu worked well with me, but he will tell you, we’re the ones with the guns, we’re the ones with the whole deal, we’re the ones with the B-2 bombers, etc.” the president told Axios reporter Mark Caputo.
“If it weren’t for Donald Trump, Israel would have been eviscerated.”
When asked whether he would be able to keep Israel from attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon to preserve a preliminary peace deal with Iran, the president was adamant: “Yeah, I will be.”
“They have a lot of respect for me, and they do as I say.”
A key provision of the current memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran is for the fighting on all fronts, including in Lebanon, to cease. Iran publicly claimed it would not participate in the first round of peace talks under the MOU as long as Israel and Hezbollah were still fighting.
Iran’s qualms over Lebanon led to the Trump administration postponing a trip to Switzerland by Vice President JD Vance to kick off detailed talks.
While Trump and Netanyahu have long been close, cracks in the relationship have appeared in recent weeks due to disagreements over the war against Iran and its proxies.
Earlier this month, Trump confirmed he had lambasted Netanyahu as “f—ing crazy” during a testy phone call following Israeli attacks against terror targets in southern Lebanon.
At the start of June, Trump claimed he got Israel and Hezbollah to agree to stop fighting, only for the two sides to continue to exchange fire.
Then, last week, Trump urged Israel not to retaliate against Iranian attacks, but Netanyahu decided to do so anyway.
Multiple intelligence agencies have warned Trump that Netanyahu is likely to take actions aimed at undermining the MOU with Iran, the Washington Post reported Friday.
Vance publicly reprimanded far-right members of Netanyahu’s cabinet during a White House press briefing on Thursday, but stopped short of directing his ire at the Israeli leader himself.
“If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world,” the vice president chided. “Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower.”
“The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump, and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in.”
Last year, Trump and Netanyahu appeared to be at loggerheads over Trump’s push to end the Israel-Hamas war.
During Trump’s first administration, the US president had been incensed both that Netanyahu recognized Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory and that he didn’t help with the strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
“That was going to be a joint [attack] and all of a sudden, we were told that Israel was not doing it,” Trump told Time magazine in 2024. “And I was not happy about that. That was something I never forgot. And it showed me something.”
In that interview, Trump also jabbed that, “Bibi Netanyahu rightfully has been criticized” over the Hamas attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
