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President Donald Trump is expected to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday in a high-stakes sit-down that comes at a politically fraught moment for the Israeli prime minister.
The two leaders will discuss the conflict in Iran, the framework agreement for peace in Lebanon and efforts to expand the Abraham Accords, a White House official said. Trump will also meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Tuesday to discuss the war in Ukraine, the official said.
The Israeli leader has seen support for the Iran war he’d long championed fall at home, and support for his government’s actions plummet in the United States.
His relationship with Trump, whom he’s repeatedly called “the greatest friend that the state of Israel has ever had in the White House,” has appeared strained as well. Asked Monday on Air Force One about Netanyahu criticizing his decision to sell F-35 jets to Turkey, Trump said, “Nobody tells me what we should be selling and not.”
Asked if he and Netanyahu were on the same page when it comes to Iran, Trump said, “We have a little difference, but pretty close.”
Netanyahu said at the start of an Israeli Cabinet meeting on Sunday that he and Trump would discuss the state of the Iran war, which shows no signs of reaching a resolution.
This month, the U.S. carried out strikes for nearly two straight weeks, while Iran struck ships and American targets in the region. The sit-down will be their first face-to-face meeting since Axios reported last month that Trump had called Netanyahu “f—ing crazy” during a heated phone call. Trump confirmed the report was accurate in an interview with the New York Post. “I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon,” Trump said.
Asked about the confrontation, Netanyahu said he and Trump sometimes have “tactical disagreements.” “We always find a way to work them out, and we do so as great friends,” he said.
The meeting also comes amid scrutiny from lawmakers over the administration’s handling of the war since the U.S. and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury in late February. Four U.S. soldiers were killed in recent days, bringing the total number of American troops killed during the war to 18.
NBC News has also previously reported that U.S. weapons stockpiles are diminishing and that U.S. military commanders are allowing some Iranian missiles and drones to pass U.S. defenses to preserve the weapons supply.
At the same time, the Defense Department is requesting that Congress approve an additional $67 billion in supplemental funding to expand weapons production and speed up delivery.
Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, argued in an interview on “Meet the Press” that the U.S. “has everything that it needs to conduct this campaign as effectively as it needs to be.”
Asked whether Trump had decided against escalating attacks on Iran, Waltz said that the president was giving talks between the two nations “some space” but that all options remained on the table.
In a Sunday interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Netanyahu said that the U.S. and Israeli intelligence services “are working so close together that it’s not that I’m going to present new information, but I think it’s a good thing to have the opportunity to sit with our good friend President Trump and to hear what he has in mind, because I think in many ways it’s his decision.”
“But let me say one thing, and I think that I should say it very, very clearly: If Iran attacks Israel, either directly or through proxies, either with ballistic missiles or UAVs or killer drones, it will make a terrible mistake, because our response, Israel’s response, will be very, very forceful,” Netanyahu said.
