President Trump confirmed he used profane language toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a Monday phone call, telling the Israeli leader he was "f***ing crazy", but insisted the two maintain a strong working relationship as leaders navigating an active Middle East conflict.
The confirmation came during an exclusive interview on the New York Post's "Pod Force One" podcast with columnist Miranda Devine, set to air Wednesday. Axios first reported the explosive language from the Monday call, setting off a firestorm about the state of the US-Israel relationship.
Trump wasted no time putting context around the remark. He told Devine he was frustrated by Netanyahu's military operations in Lebanon at a moment when the broader US-Iran peace talks hang in the balance, but framed the exchange as one between allies, not adversaries.
"I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon," Trump said. The president's irritation centers on the risk that Israeli strikes against Hezbollah targets could derail a far larger diplomatic prize, a memorandum of understanding with Iran that could reopen the Strait of Hormuz and lead to the dismantling of Tehran's nuclear program.
But Trump made clear the relationship remains intact.
"We've worked very well together. I like Bibi a lot. And I work very well with him."
He then offered a framing that captured the weight of the moment: "I'm a wartime president. He's a wartime prime minister." It was a statement of shared burden, not shared blame, and a signal that Trump views the current standoff through the lens of a commander-in-chief managing multiple fronts at once.
The conflict began February 28, and Israeli airstrikes on the first day killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other members of his family. A cease-fire has held since April 7, but the underlying tensions, and the diplomatic negotiations, remain unresolved.
Trump has previously intervened publicly in Israeli political controversies, including demanding that the Israeli president pardon Netanyahu over a corruption case he called a wartime distraction.
The backdrop to Trump's frustration is the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which about a fifth of the world's oil flows. Both the US and Iranian militaries have shut off most commercial traffic through the strait during the lull in fighting, and a US naval blockade remains in place around Iran's ports.
That blockade has driven fuel prices higher, and the political math is not lost on anyone in Washington. Elevated gasoline prices and surging inflation ahead of the November 3 midterm elections would more likely harm Republicans, a reality that adds urgency to the administration's push for a deal.
Trump acknowledged the economic pressure but pushed back against catastrophic forecasts. "Everyone said it was going to be $300, $400 a barrel, it's $98 a barrel but that's not a big price to pay if you look at the possibility of them having a nuclear weapon," he said.
Asked whether the blockade could remain through Labor Day, Monday, September 7, Trump was cautious but optimistic. "I don't know. I mean, I think it could be, but I think it's unlikely. I think that we'll have it. I think this will resolve itself fairly quickly," he said.
The president described the talks as "rapidly evolving" and expressed confidence that the outcome would mean "we're not going to have a nuclear weapon and lots of other good things are going to happen." A memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran could reopen the strait as early as this week, though several false starts, caused in part by alleged Iranian backtracking, have tempered expectations.
Trump's broader diplomatic strategy has linked the Iran negotiations to Israel normalization efforts across the region, a move that reportedly left Arab leaders silent on a recent conference call.
One complicating factor in the negotiations is the leadership vacuum in Tehran. With Ali Khamenei dead, his 56-year-old son Mojtaba Khamenei has assumed the role of Supreme Leader. Iran reportedly uses a days-long courier process to communicate with Mojtaba Khamenei, a security measure designed to prevent his assassination by Israeli forces.
That courier system has slowed the pace of diplomacy to a crawl. Every exchange between Washington and Tehran's top decision-maker requires days, not hours.
Trump said he believes Mojtaba Khamenei is "involved, absolutely" in decisions about how to end the war. He also expressed interest in a direct meeting. "I'd like to meet him," Trump said. "I'd love to meet everybody. I would like to meet him, and we probably will meet at some point, depending on how it all works out."
Tehran has insisted that Israeli targeting of Hezbollah must cease before any deal is reached. That demand is precisely what makes Netanyahu's continued operations in Lebanon so dangerous to the broader diplomatic effort, and precisely what provoked Trump's blunt language on Monday.
Netanyahu himself has faced his own pressures during the conflict, including disclosing a secret prostate cancer treatment that he said he kept hidden from Iran during the early stages of the war.
The fact that Trump's profane remark reached the press at all became its own controversy. Axios broke the story Monday, and conservative commentator Mark Levin responded by calling on the FBI to investigate who supplied the outlet with the vulgar language. Levin claimed the leak aided Iran.
That concern is not frivolous. In a negotiation where every signal matters, where Iran's leadership communicates by courier to avoid detection, a leaked presidential outburst directed at America's closest Middle East ally hands Tehran leverage it did not earn at the table.
Trump, for his part, did not run from the language. He confirmed it and reframed it. The message to Netanyahu was direct. The message to the public was equally clear: this is a president managing a complex, multi-front situation who is willing to be candid with allies when their actions threaten a larger strategic objective.
While Trump navigates the Iran standoff, Democrats have offered little in the way of constructive alternatives. Former Vice President Tim Walz traveled to Barcelona to criticize the administration at a progressive summit without proposing a single policy alternative on Iran.
The political class will fixate on the profanity. That is what the political class does. But the substance underneath the language is what matters. Trump is trying to close a deal that would reopen a critical oil corridor, dismantle Iran's nuclear program, and stabilize a region that has been on fire since February.
Netanyahu's operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon may serve Israel's immediate security interests. But they also threaten to collapse a negotiation that serves everyone's long-term interests, including Israel's. Trump told Netanyahu as much, in terms no one could misunderstand.
The administration faces real pressure on multiple fronts. Fuel prices are climbing. Midterms are approaching. Iran's courier-dependent leadership makes every round of talks painfully slow. And foreign leaders from Zelensky to Netanyahu continue to press their own demands on a White House already stretched thin.
Whether the Strait of Hormuz reopens this week or stays closed through September, the underlying dynamic is the same. Trump is trying to force a deal that previous administrations could not even approach. The language was rough. The stakes are rougher.
A president willing to tell an ally the hard truth to his face is not a president who has lost control of the situation. It is a president who understands what is on the line, and who expects his partners to understand it, too.
