President Trump offered a glimpse into his private conversations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, suggesting that the two men had a broadly positive rapport but that recent disagreements had prompted the president to call the Israeli leader “crazy.”
“We’ve worked very well together,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with The New York Post, summarizing their working relationship as close and constructive.
But Mr. Trump confirmed that he had repeatedly used expletives to convey his frustration on a recent phone call with Mr. Netanyahu over Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon when asked about an Axios report on the conversation between the two men.
“I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon,” he said, referring to the war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon.
Mr. Trump made his comments after reports of a growing split between the two leaders as the war with Iran, which began with joint U.S.-Israeli attacks, drags on. The Trump administration has excluded Israel from negotiations to end the conflict and the president has publicly urged Israel to stop fighting with Hezbollah.
In an interview with CNBC on Wednesday published after Mr. Trump made his remarks, Mr. Netanyahu acknowledged what he described as “tactical disagreements” with the president but declined to share details. “We always find a way to work them out,” he said.
In the New York Post interview, Mr. Trump also said that he hoped to eventually meet with Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. “We probably will meet at some point,” he said.
The Iranian authorities did not comment, and it was unclear whether Ayatollah Khamenei, who is believed to have been injured in the U.S.-Israeli strikes that began the war, would be willing to meet with Mr. Trump.
The president said that he did not know the extent of the injuries sustained by the supreme leader, who has not been seen in public for months. “If you believe the stories, he’s missing a lot of different parts,” said Mr. Trump.
Speaking more broadly about the state of negotiations to end the war, Mr. Trump suggested that he was not in a rush to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route for oil and gas that has remained largely choked by Iran since the beginning of the war.
When asked whether the strait would still be blocked by Labor Day on Sept. 7., Mr. Trump replied: “I don’t know.”
Jonathan Wolfe contributed reporting.
Leo Sands is a correspondent for the Breaking News Hub of The New York Times based in London.
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