{"id":294547,"date":"2026-02-16T20:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T20:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/294547\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T20:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T20:14:08","slug":"trump-publicly-condemns-israels-president-for-the-trumpiest-of-reasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/294547\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump publicly condemns Israel\u2019s president for the Trumpiest of reasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a rule, Donald Trump exercises caution before condemning Israeli leaders, but in recent days, the American president apparently couldn\u2019t help himself. The New York Times reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

President Trump\u2019s public excoriation of Israel\u2019s president because he has not yet pardoned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his long-running corruption trial has touched a nerve in Israel.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump called President Isaac Herzog \u2018disgraceful\u2019 while speaking to reporters at the White House on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people of Israel should really shame him\u201d for not letting Netanyahu off the hook, Trump said, referring to Israel\u2019s president, whose responsibilities are largely ceremonial.<\/p>\n

The trouble began in earnest in June, when the Republican published a rant<\/a> to his social media platform, insisting that the case against the prim minister \u201cshould be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY, or a Pardon given to a Great Hero.\u201d He added, \u201cTHIS TRAVESTY OF \u2018JUSTICE\u2019 CAN NOT BE ALLOWED!\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu, who\u2019s insisted he\u2019s done nothing wrong, is facing charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes. Trump condemned the cases, not because of evidence pointing to Netanyahu\u2019s innocence, but because the American president believes the Israeli prime minister is an ally and \u201ca WARRIOR.\u201d In fact, at no point in his harangue did Trump even question the charges against the prime minister on the merits.<\/p>\n

His argument followed a child-like logic: He likes Netanyahu, so Netanyahu\u2019s alleged crimes must go unexamined.<\/p>\n

An Axios report<\/a> added, \u201cTrump\u2019s comments in a post on his Truth Social account were an unprecedented intervention by a U.S. president in a legal proceeding in another democratic ally.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was true, though in the days, weeks and months that followed, Trump continued his lobbying campaign, publicly and privately<\/a> demanding a pardon for Netanyahu, without regard for the evidence or concerns about diplomatic propriety.<\/p>\n

Complicating matters, it\u2019s not just Israel. When Marine Le Pen, a prominent far-right politician in France, was caught up in an embezzlement scheme<\/a> involving E.U. funds, Trump threw an online tantrum<\/a> and condemned the case against her as a \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d When former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was headed to prison, Trump imposed harsh new trade tariffs<\/a> on the country as a punishment for not letting Bolsonaro get away with his crimes.<\/p>\n

Closer to home, Trump appears to have taken steps to punish Colorado<\/a> because the state\u2019s Democratic governor hasn\u2019t freed a convicted felon the president likes.<\/p>\n

\tRecommended<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSteve Benen<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSteve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of\u00a0MaddowBlog\u00a0and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\tLatest Post\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\tTrump publicly condemns Israel\u2019s president for the Trumpiest of reasons<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a rule, Donald Trump exercises caution before condemning Israeli leaders, but in recent days, the American president…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-294547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}