President Trump confirmed in an exclusive “Pod Force One” interview with The Post’s Miranda Devine that he called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “f–king crazy” during a Monday phone call, but insisted they have “worked very well together.”
“I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon,” Trump said. The attacks have imperiled US-Iran peace talks due to Tehran’s insistence that the Israeli targeting of Hezbollah cease before a deal is reached to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and then dismantle Iran’s nuclear program.
“We’ve worked very well together. I like Bibi a lot. And I work very well with him,” Trump insisted after confirming his fiery outburst demanding that Netanyahu hold fire.
I’m a wartime president,” the commander in chief told Devine for the new podcast episode out Wednesday. “He’s a wartime prime minister.”
Although the president said he’s frustrated by the possibility that the side conflict could derail a larger peace, he said he remains optimistic that he will have a deal “fairly quickly” — and crowed about record-high stock market values, showing the US economy is resilient, and dashed predictions of even higher oil prices.
“Everyone said it was going to be $300, $400 a barrel, it’s 98 dollars a barrel but that’s not a big price to pay if you look at the possibility of them having a nuclear weapon,” he said.
A memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran could reopen the Strait of Hormuz as early as this week, alleviating the energy pinch that caused gasoline prices and inflation to surge.
Trump’s explosive language with Netanyahu was first reported Monday by Axios and was met with disbelief by some defenders of Israel, including conservative commentator Mark Levin, who called on the FBI to investigate who supplied the news outlet the vulgar verbiage, claiming it aided Iran.
