During an interview with CNBC’s Sara Eisen that aired Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed reports of a tense expletive-laden phone call between him and President Donald Trump, as first reported by Axios earlier this week.
Netanyahu declined to detail the specifics of the call in question, but maintained that Trump was a reliable ally for Israel.
Partial transcript as follows:
EISEN: So let’s talk about the call that you had with him this week, which is getting a lot of attention. The president confirmed that he said, you’re effing crazy. How did you react to that?
What really happened in that call?
NETANYAHU: Well, I’m not going to get into details of our conversations. We’ve had thousands, well, a lot, a lot of them. And if you think this is a crisis, you should be in some other conversations, but we’ve always found a way.
We have so many agreements. We agree on the main things. We want to get Iran, the nuclear program in Iran, finished.
We want to make sure that Iran doesn’t pose a threat to Israel, to the Middle East, to America, that it doesn’t develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, not only to Israel and to every capital in Europe, but to every city in the United States. That’s our common goal. That’s what we set out to do, and to expand the circle of peace, as the president and I did in the Abraham Accords together.
So we have common goals. Sometimes we have, as in the best of families, you have these tactical disagreements. We always find a way to work them out, and we do so as great friends.
We can disagree in the morning, and by the afternoon, we have common action.
EISEN: So I was going to say, has your relationship at all shifted with him?
NETANYAHU: No, no. This has been a great relationship, because he’s been the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House. And he respects me. I respect him. We always find a way to work out our differences.
EISEN: Did he say that you’d be in jail if not for me?
NETANYAHU: Look, I’m not going to get into the details, but he’s been very vocal about the absurdity of this fake trial that I’m going through. You know, they asked me, I don’t know if this came up with the last time you were here, but since then —
EISEN: Two years ago.
NETANYAHU: Yes, well, since then, they’ve asked me in the court, you know, I’m supposed to be receiving gifts. So one of the first things they said to me is, Prime Minister, 30 years ago, your five-year-old child received a Bugs Bunny gift from a friend. So this trial is ridiculous.
The president understands what a ridiculous trial is, and he’s been very vocal about that. I appreciate it. But it’s unraveling on its own.
It’s just so ridiculous.
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