President Donald Trump has admitted that he repeatedly swore at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a leaked phone call.
“I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon,” Trump told the New York Post’s Miranda Devine in a Pod Force One interview, insisting that he wasn’t “angry” during his expletive-laden meltdown.
Trump, 79, was grilled on the matter after Axios reported on Monday that he lashed out at his war ally after demanding Israel agree to a ceasefire with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group from Lebanon.
Trump reportedly called Netanyahu “f---ing crazy” for his bombing campaign in Lebanon.
The president also insisted during the interview that he and Netanyahu work well together as “wartime president” and “wartime prime minister,” despite the heated long-distance phone showdown.
“We’ve worked very well together. I like Bibi a lot. And I work very well with him,” Trump said, adding that they have a “very good relationship.”
Citing a U.S. official, Axios reported that Trump told Netanyahu on the call that he’d be imprisoned if it weren’t for him and that “everybody hates you now.”
“I’m saving your a--... everybody hates Israel because of this,” the president reportedly told Netanyahu.
A second source who was briefed on the wild call also claimed Trump was “p---ed,” and yelled at Netanyahu, “What the f--- are you doing?”
Trump “steamrolled” Netanyahu during their phone call, a U.S. source told the publication.
Pressed by Devine about claims that Netanyahu tricked him into launching joint strikes on Iran on February 28, Trump said he “started [the war] because I can’t let them [Iran] have nuclear weapons.”
The president and his administration have offered conflicting explanations for launching strikes on Iran and have made contradictory statements about ending and escalating the conflict.
The White House has said that Trump is fulfilling his campaign promise to deny the Iranian regime the ability to develop a nuclear weapon.
If Iran had nuclear weapons, “there would be no Israel,” Trump told Pod Force One.
“If there wasn’t me, there would be no Israel right now,” he went on.
“It started off when I terminated the horrible Barack Hussein Obama Iran nuclear deal that he penned, and that would have given Iran a nuclear weapon. That was a road to a nuclear weapon,” the president said, referring to the 2015 deal in which Iran agreed to reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below the threshold required to build a nuclear weapon.
Trump ditched the deal in 2018, during his first term, calling it “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.”
The president also claimed that if he hadn’t attacked Iran, “they would have had a nuclear weapon.”
“If I didn’t do that attack—very few people would have done it—Iran would have had a nuclear weapon, and they would have used it almost immediately,” the president added.
Netanyahu on Monday posted on X, saying he had told Trump in their phone call that “if Hezbollah does not cease attacking our cities and citizens—Israel will attack terror targets in Beirut.”
“This position of ours remains unchanged,” he said, adding that the IDF will continue to operate “as planned” in southern Lebanon.
Trump, meanwhile, claimed that Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to de-escalate fighting.
“There will be no troops going to Beirut and any troops that are on their way have already been turned back,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
