Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump engaged in a heated phone call last week over how to confront Iran, Israeli television reported Monday, contradicting earlier claims that the two had reached a unified stance on preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
According to Channel 12 news, the conversation was marked by sharp disagreements, with Trump reportedly telling Netanyahu: “I want a diplomatic solution with the Iranians. I believe in my ability to make a good deal.” He also reportedly emphasized his interest in an agreement that would serve the interests of both sides.
The tone of the reported conversation appeared to conflict with earlier claims suggesting the two leaders had concluded their call with mutual understanding.
In response, the Prime Minister’s Office denied to the network that Netanyahu had “a tense conversation” with Trump.
Following the Thursday phone call, Netanyahu’s office had issued a readout that said he and Trump “agreed on the need to ensure that Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons.”
Trump, meanwhile, has been touting “real progress” in the ongoing nuclear negotiations between the Untied States and Iran, predicting on Sunday that there could be “good news” ahead. Tehran’s foreign ministry however declared Monday that no date has yet been set for the next round of talks and vowed the Islamic Republic will not consider temporarily suspending uranium enrichment, as the US is demanding.
The Channel 12 report on the tensions between Netanyahu and Trump came shortly after visiting US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in an interview with Fox News that “President Trump specifically sent me here to speak with the prime minister about how negotiations are going and how important it is that we stay united and let this process play out.”
Noem, a Trump loyalist who formerly was governor of South Dakota, described her meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem as “very candid.” Asked to elaborate, she declined to “share what the president’s personal message was to the prime minister, but the prime minister’s team had a conversation afterwards with us that they don’t remember a bilateral meeting that was quite that candid and direct.”
She added that she told Netanyahu “how we really felt about the importance of Israel, our support for Israel, but this negotiation is critically important too.”
“We are on a short timeframe here. We aren’t talking weeks or months or years before President Trump will make a decision on what’s going to happen with Iran. [The Iranians] have been given a very short time frame, a matter of days, and I asked the prime minister to work with President Trump to make sure we’re making wise decisions together,” Noem said.
Noem was then pressed if she believed Israel has now shelved plans for a potential attack on Iran, which several recent reports have suggested the Israeli military is working on, “or do they still have intentions to attack Iran?”
“The president will never accept a nuclear capable Iran. He will never accept them having nuclear weapons and building the capacity to that,” she said in a response. “The intelligence information that Israel has and shares with the United States, and which we also have, and are using for those conversations, is critically important. I think the message to the American people is is that we have a president who wants peace, but who will not tolerate a nuclear Iran capability in the future.”
“But he wants this prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to be on the same page with him.”
Asked what Israel wants vis-a-vis Iran, Noem said neither the US administration nor Netanyahu trust the Iranians.
“I don’t blame him one bit. His people have been devastated by their horrific violence,” she said of attacks by Iran and its proxies against Israel. “But [Netanyahu] also needs America, and he knows he needs America, and needs our president to be his ally and to work together. We are stronger when are united, and that is something that we will deal with together, but this conversation needs to be honest, frank, but we need to go forward recognizing that Iran will never have the capability to produce nuclear weapons.”
An earlier readout from Netanyahu’s office on his meeting with Noem said she “expressed unwavering support for the prime minister and the State of Israel,” without any mention of Iran.
Agencies contributed to this report.