Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forcefully rejected claims Thursday that he misled President Trump into a potential conflict with Iran, calling the notion “fake news” and insisting the president made his own decisions based on American interests.
“Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do? Come on,” Netanyahu said during a press conference. “President Trump always makes his decisions on what he thinks is good for America.”
Netanyahu pushed back on accusations that Israel had “dragged” the US into the current war with Tehran, emphasizing close coordination between the two allies while underscoring Trump’s independence.
“I didn’t have to convince him,” Netanyahu said, recounting past conversations with Trump about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
The Israeli leader said the two countries have been working “in close coordination,” including between their militaries and intelligence services, and claimed they are “achieving goals at lightning speed.”
He also cited Trump’s decision during his first term to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, which Netanyahu said required no persuasion.
“In his first term in office, he didn’t need any convincing,” Netanyahu said. “He said the Iranian nuclear deal was the worst deal that he’d ever seen, and he walked out of it.”
Follow The Post’s coverage of the United States’ airstrikes on Iran:
The prime minister recounted a meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago before the president’s second term in office, saying Trump raised Iran unprompted.
“The first thing he said to me was, ‘Bibi, we’ve got to make sure that Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons,’” Netanyahu said.
“He said that to me — I didn’t say it to him.”
The prime minister also framed Iran’s leadership as “ideological fanatics” and warned of consequences to the US if Tehran were to obtain nuclear weapons.
“Just imagine what they would do … if these lunatics had nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to every American city and every European city,” he said.
“This is a danger for the entire world.”
Netanyahu also brought up Iran’s prior orchestration of attacks against Americans, including the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut and violence targeting US personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“They tried to assassinate the American president, Donald Trump, not once, but twice,” he said.
The Israeli leader said the US and Israel are not alone in their alignment on confronting the threat, saying “dozens” of other world leaders privately agree with their approach.
He also praised Trump’s leadership on Iran, saying the world “owes a debt of deep indebtedness” to the president for confronting the regime.
“We see eye to eye on that — President Trump and I, Israel and America,” Netanyahu said.
