United States President Donald Trump has appeared to express frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before their meeting at the White House.
Trump made the comments to Fox News on Tuesday, just hours before he and the Israeli prime minister were set to meet in the Oval Office, their first such meeting since they jointly launched the war with Iran on February 28.
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The US president pushed back when asked about reports that Netanyahu planned to discuss alleged intelligence related to Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, an underground nuclear site.
“I don’t need Bibi to tell me that,” Trump said, using Netanyahu’s nickname
He added that Netanyahu is “telling me that because he wants me to stay involved”.
“I said: ‘Why didn’t you just tell it to me, why did you have to announce it to the world?’” he said, referring to the report.
“I know exactly what’s going on at Pickaxe. It’s not a big problem,” Trump said.
Tuesday’s meeting with Netanyahu comes at a precarious time for Trump, who has said the US and Iran are engaged in a new diplomatic push following a 13-day escalation. He has repeatedly threatened new attacks, including on Pickaxe Mountain and Iran’s civilian infrastructure, if the talks fail.
That fighting followed the breakdown of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by the US and Iran in June, which saw a halt to fighting, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and the lifting of the US naval blockade on Iran.
Netanyahu’s government had opposed that deal and has favoured continued military operations aimed at regime change.
US media reports, meanwhile, have fuelled public perception that Netanyahu has repeatedly influenced Trump to take military action against Iran, including in the run-up to the 12-day war last year and the current war, which has stretched on for five months.
The conflict has remained widely unpopular in the US, and increasingly, within segments of Trump’s Republican party.
Still, Trump downplayed the differences on Iran when speaking to reporters on Monday.
“We have a little difference,” Trump said of Netanyahu, “but pretty close, yeah.”
During that exchange, Trump also pushed back on Israel’s opposition to the US resuming its F-35 programme with Turkiye.
“Frankly, we’re being very nice to a lot of countries that would not survive without us. And you know who wouldn’t survive without us? Israel.”
Despite Trump and, notably, his vice president, JD Vance, showing more willingness to criticise Israel in recent weeks, Washington’s policy of staunch military support has remained unchanged.
Netanyahu’s visit comes as lawmakers continued to mull a defence budget that would integrate parts of the US and Israel’s militaries, with the package already passed by the US House of Representatives.
For his part, Netanyahu, speaking on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” over the weekend, said he hoped to sit down with Trump “to hear what he has in mind” for Iran.
Analysts have said the Israeli prime minister is acutely aware of his tanking popularity in the US, and will likely try to shed the perception he is trying to push the US into further war.
On Trump, Netanyahu said it’s largely “his decision” on how to move forward.
“If he can do so without returning to intense military fighting, that’s fine. Why not?” he said, before reiterating his government’s zero-tolerance approach to Iran’s civilian nuclear programme.
“But one way or the other, they have to end their nuclear program,” he said.
