US President Donald Trump acknowledged calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “crazy” in an expletive-filled phone exchange over fighting in Lebanon, while the US was trying to negotiate an end to hostilities with Iran.
In an interview broadcast yesterday, Trump was asked whether he had called the longtime Israeli leader “effing crazy” and accused him of ingratitude, paraphrasing a report by Axios.
“I did,” Trump told the “Pod Force One” podcast. “I wouldn’t say angry. I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon, you know.”
Trump went on to say he and Netanyahu get along very well.
Netanyahu, asked about the Axios report, declined to offer details of the conversation but said his relationship with Trump had not changed.
“We have common goals. Sometimes we have, as in the best of families, you have these tactical disagreements,” he said in an interview on CNBC yesterday.
“He’s been the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House, and he respects me; I respect him. We always find a way to work out our differences.”
Iran has said it will not agree to a deal with the US to end the war that Trump and Netanyahu launched in late February unless a ceasefire also covers Lebanon, which Israel invaded in March in pursuit of the Iran-aligned Hezbollah group that fired across the border in support of Tehran.
Hostilities have continued despite a US-mediated agreement announced on Monday that led Israel to step back from attacking the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, and the Iran-backed group to halt cross-border strikes.
Israeli drone strikes killed at least six people in southern Lebanon and targeted a car south of Beirut on yesterday.
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