President Trump on Wednesday confirmed reports of a disagreement he had with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding Netanyahu’s desire to bomb Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities—while Trump is in the middle of negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran.
“Did you warn Prime Minister Netanyahu against taking some sort of action that could disrupt the talks there, in a phone call last week?” a reporter asked Trump, after he swore in former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as interim U.S. district attorney for D.C.
“Well, I like to be honest,” Trump said. “Yes, I did. Next question please?”
Rather than taking another question, Trump continued to describe the latest spat between himself and the Israeli prime minister.
“It’s not a warning. I said I don’t think it’s appropriate.”
“What exactly did you tell him?”
“I said I don’t think it’s appropriate, we’re having very good discussions with [Iran], and I said, ‘I don’t think it’s appropriate right now.’ Because if we can settle it with a very strong document, very strong … no trust, I don’t trust anybody. So no trust. I want it very strong, we can go in with inspectors, we can take whatever we want, we can blow up whatever we want, but nobody getting killed,” he rambled.
“I told [Netanyahu] this would be very inappropriate to do right now because we’re very close to a solution. Now, that could change at any moment. It could change with a phone call. But right now, I think [Iran wants] to make a deal, and if we can make a deal, [that would] save a lot of lives.”
This disagreement is the latest in a small but notable series of events in which the Trump administration has circumvented Netanyahu in a way the Biden administration did not. In March, the Trump administration sent its hostage envoy, Adam Boehler, to negotiate directly with Hamas to free Edan Alexander without Netanyahu’s consent.
When faced with criticism, Boehler stated that the Hamas officials were “pretty nice guys” who “didn’t have horns growing out of their head” and were “actually guys like us.” His response led to uproar among the Israeli center right.
Trump also skipped over Israel on his recent Middle East trip, suggesting that Netanyahu does not have the same sway with Trump as he did with the Biden administration.
“There’s a cadre in the administration who doesn’t particularly care for Israel; they have no special attachment to Israel. They view them as a partner but not one we should be going out of our way to be doing favors for,” a former Trump administration official told Politico, during Trump’s Middle East trip. “Netanyahu is one of those people who pushes and pushes, and that can rub Trump the wrong way.”
The post Trump Confirms He Got Into a Fight With Netanyahu Over Iran Plans appeared first on New Republic.
