Inside Trump and Netanyahu’s Complicated Relationship

**Ryan Knutson** (0:05)
Lately, President Donald Trump has been increasingly critical of one of America's closest allies.

**Donald Trump** (0:13)
Without the United States, there would be no Israel. Without me, there would be no Israel.

**Ryan Knutson** (0:19)
More specifically, Trump has been calling out Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

**Donald Trump** (0:25)
I've had a great relationship with Bibi, but now Bibi has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon.

**Ryan Knutson** (0:33)
That's Trump at a press conference last week. He went on to criticize Netanyahu's tactics against one of Iran's allies in Lebanon, Hezbollah.

**Donald Trump** (0:41)
And too many people are being killed.
And you don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you're looking for somebody. Because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they're not all Hezbollah.

**Ryan Knutson** (0:52)
Their conversations in private have gotten heated, too. At one point, Trump told Netanyahu over the phone that he was, quote, F-ing crazy.
Why is the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu important?

**Josh Dawsey** (1:07)
Well, it's important because, A, it's one of the United States' top allies, and B, the two men have been prosecuting this war together in Iran for the last four or five months.

**Ryan Knutson** (1:19)
That's our colleague Josh Dawsey.

**Josh Dawsey** (1:21)
They went in together. Netanyahu was critical to convincing the president that it was a good idea.
The troops have been fighting together and sort of how this winds down. The relationship between those two men is integral to figuring out what happens next in the Middle East.

**Ryan Knutson** (1:41)
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knutson. It's Tuesday, June 23rd.
Coming up on the show, inside the complicated relationship between Trump and Netanyahu.

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**Ryan Knutson** (2:48)
Can you tell me about the history of this relationship between President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu? When does it begin?

**Josh Dawsey** (2:55)
I was in the first term, the two men were in close touch and talked a lot about military operations.
But President Trump said near the end of his first term, but he was frustrated that Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden in 2020 for his win and did not parrot the president's claims of election fraud. And then the two men in the out of office years, I don't think talked all that regularly. But when President Trump came back in office, Netanyahu was very careful to create strong ties when they visited Washington repeatedly.

**Ryan Knutson** (3:29)
And Netanyahu calls Trump Donald.

**Josh Dawsey** (3:32)
That's correct. Yes. And a lot of the other world leaders don't do that. That's a different thing.
It certainly speaks of the familiarity of their relationship.

**Ryan Knutson** (3:42)
During one of Netanyahu's visits to Washington, just a few weeks after Trump's inauguration, Netanyahu came bearing a gift.

**Josh Dawsey** (3:50)
He brought him a gold pager that was supposed to be like the pagers that the Israelis used to blow up Hamas operatives.

**Ryan Knutson** (4:00)
Back in 2024, Israeli intelligence hid explosives and pagers that Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon were using, and then blew them up.

**Josh Dawsey** (4:10)
It was sort of viewed as an intelligence coup by the Mossad. A lot of folks were sort of wild by it. How do they do that, including the president? I interviewed Senator Lindsey Graham, who said to me that the president was just sort of dazzled by his pager operation. So, when Netanyahu visited the White House last year, he brought a gold pager and gave it to President Trump as a gift to show him that this is how the pager looks, and here's one of your trademark color gold.
And the president really loved that gift.

**Ryan Knutson** (4:40)
That's an interesting present. Here's a gold version of the thing we use to blow up our enemies.

**Josh Dawsey** (4:46)
It is a curious present. I don't know if there's anything else you can type inside that.

**Ryan Knutson** (4:51)
Do you know where he keeps it?

**Josh Dawsey** (4:53)
I don't know where he keeps it, though I do know that he showed it off to multiple visitors.
He keeps all sorts of trademarks and gifts that various CEOs and folks give him in the White House. The pager is something that he regularly shows people.