Trump Pushes Back on Netanyahu Before Iran Meeting
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- Trump told Fox News he doesn't need Netanyahu's intelligence on Iran's Pickaxe Mountain underground nuclear site—"I know exactly what's going on at Pickaxe. It's not a big problem"—and questioned why Netanyahu "had to announce it to the world," suggesting Netanyahu "wants me to stay involved."
- The White House meeting is Trump and Netanyahu's first sit-down since the US and Israel jointly launched the Iran war on February 28, coming as Trump says a new US-Iran diplomatic push is underway following a 13-day escalation.
- Trump downplayed policy differences on Monday—"We have a little difference, but pretty close, yeah"—while pushing back on Israel's opposition to the US resuming its F-35 programme with Turkiye, saying countries like Israel "would not survive without us."
- Netanyahu's government opposed the June MoU that halted fighting, reopened the Strait of Hormuz, and lifted the US naval blockade on Iran, and has favored continued military operations aimed at regime change.
- Netanyahu told Fox News "Sunday Morning Futures" the Iran decision is "his [Trump's] decision" and reiterated "they have to end their nuclear program," while analysts say he is acutely aware of his tanking US popularity and is trying to shed the perception he is pushing the US into further war.
- US lawmakers are mulling a defence budget integrating parts of the US and Israeli militaries, with the package already passed by the US House of Representatives.
Why it matters: Netanyahu is arriving at the White House at a moment when the Iran war is unpopular in the US and increasingly within Trump's own Republican party, and the Israeli prime minister's domestic standing there has tanked. The public irritation from Trump—who publicly questioned why Netanyahu "had to announce it to the world"—signals Netanyahu is losing leverage over US Iran policy even as a House-passed defence package integrating the two militaries awaits the Senate.
