U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledged calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “crazy” during a phone exchange over fighting in Lebanon. The call came as the U.S. was attempting to broker an end to hostilities involving Iran.
In an interview broadcast on Wednesday, 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."
He said he and Netanyahu get along very well and recalled telling him, “Bibi, we got to stop this.”
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 on Wednesday.
"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 United States to end the war launched in late February unless any ceasefire also includes Lebanon.
Hostilities have continued despite a U.S.-mediated agreement announced on Monday that led Israel to step back from attacking the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut.
Israeli drone strikes killed at least six people in southern Lebanon and targeted a car south of Beirut on Wednesday, Lebanese security sources said. Israel said it intercepted a hostile aircraft likely fired by Hezbollah.
Trump said Israel would have been in a much worse position if he had not withdrawn from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal brokered under Barack Obama. He argued that Iran’s nuclear programme has since advanced and that his decision helped protect Israel’s security.
After Trump withdrew from that deal during his first White House term in 2018, Iran produced stockpiles of near-weapons-grade highly enriched uranium, which Trump now demands it relinquish.
Trump's critics say Iran is now closer to making a nuclear weapon, and it will be hard for Trump to negotiate a better deal.
Trump has used expletives about Israel in the past, including publicly saying last year that Israel and Iran "don't know what the fuck they are doing."
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Maritime trackers received new reports of an attack on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, according to the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), adding to concerns about energy supplies after Saudi Arabia shut down a vital oil pipeline on Saturday.
Saudi Arabia is now facing pressure from both ends of the Arabian Peninsula. While the crisis around the Strait of Hormuz is disrupting Gulf shipping and energy flows, fighting has intensified in western Yemen, bringing the Houthis back into direct confrontation with the kingdom.
Iran has warned it will retaliate against any future U.S. attacks, saying American energy interests and infrastructure across the Gulf could become targets in a further escalation of the conflict.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Sunday that the United States must recognise that the “rules of the game” in its war against Iran had changed “before it is too late”, a day after Washington struck several Iranian tankers in the Gulf.
An Iranian tanker was hit by U.S. forces on Saturday near Iran's key oil export hub, Kharg Island, in the Gulf, the semi-official Iranian news agency Tasnim reported.
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