US President Donald Trump has confirmed a tense exchange with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which he reportedly berated his close ally with expletives.
In an interview published Wednesday in the New York Post, Trump was asked about the conversation he had with Netanyahu over the phone on Monday.
“You said, ‘Are you f-ing crazy? What are you f-ing doing? I helped you stay out of jail.’ Is that true? Did you speak to him in those terms?” the interviewer asked.
“I did,” Trump responded. “I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon.”
“I said, ‘Bibi, we gotta stop this.'”
Trump went on to say he had a “very good relationship” with Netanyahu. “We’ve done well together… I like Bibi a lot.”
Trump unleashed the profane tirade over Israel’s threats to bomb the Lebanese capital Beirut, fearing it would undermine talks with Tehran to end the war in the Middle East, the Axios news outlet and ABC News reported.
The exchange underscored the shaky ties between two right-wing allies who started the war by launching an attack on Iran in late February that spread to Israel striking Lebanon.
Israeli media have rejected the account of the conversation.
A White House official referred AFP to Trump’s Truth Social posts from Monday in which he thanked Netanyahu for what he said was an agreement to pull troops back from Beirut.
Iran had reportedly halted peace talks because of Israel’s attacks on Lebanon.
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When Donald Trump returned to the White House for his second term, many assumed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had found his strongest ally yet.
Trump backed Israel through the Iran war, repeatedly defended its military actions, and positioned himself as one of the most pro-Israel presidents in modern US history. But a series of developments over the past two months, culminating in an explosive phone call over Lebanon this week, suggests the relationship may be entering a more complicated phase.
According to Axios, Trump erupted at Netanyahu during a June 1 phone call after Israel threatened to expand military operations in Lebanon and strike targets in Beirut. Citing US officials familiar with the conversation, Axios reported that Trump accused the Israeli prime minister of jeopardising broader American interests in the region and warned that further escalation would leave Israel increasingly isolated.
A US official briefed on the call quoted Trump as saying: “You’re f***ing crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your a**. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.” Another source said Trump was visibly furious and at one point shouted at Netanyahu, asking: “What the f*** are you doing?”
The exchange was remarkable not just for its language, but for what it revealed: for perhaps the first time since Trump’s return to office, Washington’s diplomatic priorities appear to be colliding with Netanyahu’s military strategy.
The Trump-Netanyahu relationship has long been portrayed as one of the closest partnerships between an American president and an Israeli prime minister.
During Trump’s first term, the US recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moved its embassy there, recognised Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and brokered the Abraham Accords. Netanyahu often described Trump as Israel’s greatest friend in the White House.
Even after Trump returned to office in 2025, the two leaders initially appeared aligned on almost every major issue, particularly Iran.
However, Axios, quoting sources, says tensions have been building for weeks. On May 20, Axios reported that a phone call between the two leaders over a potential Iran agreement had become unusually difficult, with one source describing Netanyahu as having his “hair on fire” over Trump’s pursuit of diplomacy with Tehran.
The disagreement has become increasingly clear—Netanyahu sees Iran primarily as a military threat to be contained through pressure, while Trump increasingly appears interested in converting battlefield gains into a broader diplomatic settlement.
The latest clash centred on Lebanon, but the dispute was really about Iran.
According to Axios, Trump’s anger was driven by concerns that Israeli escalation against Hezbollah could derail ongoing US-Iran negotiations. Tehran had reportedly warned that continued Israeli attacks in Lebanon could jeopardise talks with Washington.
In an interview with Axios in April, Trump said he had urged Netanyahu to limit Israeli action to “surgical” operations and avoid a broader war. At the time, Washington was trying to preserve a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah while also opening direct talks between Israel and Lebanon.
Reuters reported in April that the Trump administration had brokered a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon and pushed both sides towards direct negotiations in the most significant diplomatic engagement between the two countries in decades.
For Trump, Lebanon is no longer a separate conflict. It has become tied to a much larger objective: stabilising the region sufficiently to secure a broader understanding with Iran.
The irony is that Trump remains one of Israel’s strongest supporters.
The latest dispute does not resemble the ideological clashes that defined relations between Netanyahu and former presidents such as Barack Obama or Joe Biden. Instead, the disagreement is tactical.
Trump appears convinced that the military phase of the regional conflict has already achieved most of its objectives. His focus now is on turning those gains into diplomatic agreements.
In recent weeks, US officials have pursued multiple tracks simultaneously: preserving the Iran ceasefire, advancing indirect talks with Tehran, maintaining the Lebanon ceasefire and encouraging direct Israel-Lebanon negotiations
g into unusually unfriendly territory this week when he meets his counterparts from the Group of 7 industrialized democracies — strong American allies stunned by President Donald Trump’s actions against them.
Just hours after Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs kicked in — prompting responses from the European Union and Canada and threatening to ignite full-scale trade wars with close U.S. partners — Rubio arrived at the scenic Quebec town of La Malbaie on the St. Lawrence River for two days of talks starting Thursday with the top diplomats of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. All of them have been angered by the new American president’s policies.
Rubio will likely be hearing a litany of complaints about Trump’s decisions from once-friendly, like-minded countries in the G7 — notably host Canada, to which Trump has arguably been most antagonistic with persistent talk of it becoming the 51st U.S. state, additional tariffs and repeated insults against its leadership.
Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, the official host who will see each participant separately, said that “in every single meeting, I will raise the issue of tariffs to coordinate a response with the Europeans and to put pressure on the Americans.”
