{"id":712402,"date":"2026-06-03T14:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T14:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/712402\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T14:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T14:34:09","slug":"trump-calls-netanyahu-crazy-in-interview-but-insists-on-strong-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/712402\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump calls Netanyahu ‘crazy’ in interview, but insists on strong ties"},"content":{"rendered":"

BEIRUT (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump in an interview released Wednesday confirmed an earlier report that he criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> as \u201ccrazy\u201d in a Monday phone call, saying he was \u201ca little bit perturbed\u201d that Israel\u2019s fighting of Hezbollah<\/a> in Lebanon was holding back peace talks with Iran.<\/p>\n

But even as the U.S. president acknowledged the tensions, he insisted that his relationship with Netanyahu was solid and they connected, in part, because they\u2019re both \u201cwartime\u201d leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve worked very well together. I like Bibi a lot. And I work very well with him,\u201d Trump told The New York Post\u2019s \u201cPod Force One.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s acknowledgement of the tense call with Netanyahu that involved expletives is a sign of the growing pressure he faces to resolve the Iran war, as higher energy prices<\/a> and economic uncertainty are harming Republicans going into midterm elections and hampering global commerce.<\/p>\n

But Trump remained noncommittal about a timeline for settling the conflict, saying the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> might stay blocked through the Labor Day holiday on Sept. 7. He has insisted that Iran stop any efforts that could lead to a nuclear weapon and that the strait be reopened for the shipments of oil and natural gas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. I mean, I think it could be (closed through Labor Day), but I think it\u2019s unlikely. I think that we\u2019ll have it. I think this will resolve itself fairly quickly,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

The U.S. president added that Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei<\/a>, who succeeded his late father, is \u201cinvolved\u201d in peace talks for ending the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a lot of respect for him,\u201d Trump said in the interview with \u201cPod Force One.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump said that Khamenei is not doing well due to injuries sustained in an airstrike, but \u201cthey say he\u2019s giving approval because that\u2019s the way it has been for a long, long time.\u201d Khamenei\u2019s father was killed<\/a> as part of airstrikes when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran at the end of March.<\/p>\n

Still, the path toward a durable ceasefire remained unclear as hostilities continued in Lebanon.<\/p>\n

An Israeli strike Wednesday hit a car on a busy highway just south of Beirut, hours before the second day of talks between Lebanon and Israel<\/a> in Washington are set to take place.<\/p>\n

The strike in Khaldeh came without warning, and it was not immediately clear if the person targeted was killed. Israel usually says it targets members of the Hezbollah militant group in these drone strikes.<\/p>\n

Israel and Lebanon on Monday reached a U.S.-brokered agreement where Israel would not strike Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs<\/a> and Hezbollah would end its attacks on northern Israel. The agreement was made hours after Israel announced that it was going to launch strikes across the sprawling urban neighborhoods near the Lebanese capital in what would have been the most intense strikes since a nominal ceasefire went into effect on April 17.<\/p>\n

The State Department said progress was made during the first day of talks on Tuesday. Lebanon hopes to widen the scope of the ceasefire so it becomes comprehensive across the country. Israel wants to disarm Hezbollah immediately before it ends its operations in Lebanon and withdraws its troops from dozens of villages and towns. <\/p>\n

Not long after the strike on Khaldeh, the Israeli military said it intercepted what it called a hostile aircraft coming from southern Lebanon, but did not immediately blame Hezbollah. Hezbollah has not claimed a cross-border attack since the agreement.<\/p>\n

Israeli military warning rattles coastal city<\/p>\n

Israeli strikes over southern Lebanon continued, especially in and around the battered cities of Tyre and Nabatiyeh. Overnight, two strikes near Tyre killed four Syrians and two Palestinians. <\/p>\n

Israel overnight warned the Christian neighborhoods in the coastal city of Tyre that Hezbollah members are among them. Many Lebanese Shiite Muslims fled to those areas in recent days because they were spared from the aerial bombardment along the Mediterranean coast. <\/p>\n

After the warning, the Lebanese army deployed to the Christian district of Tyre in an effort to prevent Israeli attacks there and to show that Hezbollah has no armed presence in the area.<\/p>\n

Israel launched an invasion of southern Lebanon days after the latest war was sparked on March 2 when Iran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets towards northern Israel in solidarity with Iran. Israeli troops have pushed deeper into Lebanon over the past week, as Hezbollah continues to claim rocket and drone attacks. <\/p>\n

The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,468 people in Lebanon and displaced 1.2 million people<\/a>. According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s office, at least 27 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.<\/p>\n

Among the 27 killed was a soldier in southern Lebanon, whose death was announced late Monday by Israel\u2019s military. It added that seven more soldiers were wounded in the incident, three of them severely. <\/p>\n

Hezbollah\u2019s use of hard-to-detect fiber-optic drones<\/a> has been deadly for the Israeli military, which is struggling to respond.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Boak reported from Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BEIRUT (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump in an interview released Wednesday confirmed an earlier report that he criticized…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13194,206598,10537,16946,1376,2841,43,136300,13188,5897,202944,1258,13195,1571,8723,1259,61943,49282,44,714,41,39,42,40,13190,8615,883],"class_list":["post-712402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","tag-2024-2026-mideast-wars","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-diplomacy","tag-donald-trump","tag-general-news","tag-headlines","tag-hezbollah","tag-international-agreements","tag-iran","tag-iran-war","tag-israel","tag-israel-government","tag-labor","tag-lebanon","tag-middle-east","tag-mideast-wars","tag-military-and-defense","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-war-and-unrest","tag-washington-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}