‘F*** Him’: Bitter Trump Bashes Netanyahu Over Bibi’s Efforts to Cozy Up to Biden
11:37 GMT 10.12.2021 (Updated: 17:24 GMT 15.01.2023)
© AP Photo / Ariel Schalit
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Last month, the business mogul told a room full of delegates at the Republican Jewish Coalition that “no president has ever been a better friend” to Israel than him, and listed off his various “achievements,” from recognizing Jerusalem as the country’s capital to pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal.
Former President Donald Trump has expressed bitterness and disappointment with Benjamin Netanyahu – one of his closest foreign allies during his four years in office, over the former Israeli prime minister’s decision to congratulate Biden with his election victory in November 2020, and after his inauguration in January 2021.
“The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with,” Trump said, speaking to Israeli Journalist Barak Ravid in a pair of interviews for Ravid’s new book ‘Trump’s Peace: The Abraham Accords and the Reshaping of the Middle East.’
“He was very early. Like earlier than most. I haven’t spoken to him since. F*** him,” Trump said.
“I was personally disappointed in him. The elections here were in dispute. They still are…Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake,” the former president added, referring to his long-running claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” against him in key battleground states using a combination of faulty voting machines and fake mail-in ballots.
“I liked Bibi. I still like Bibi. But I also like loyalty,” Trump complained.
Congratulations @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris. Joe, we’ve had a long & warm personal relationship for nearly 40 years, and I know you as a great friend of Israel. I look forward to working with both of you to further strengthen the special alliance between the U.S. and Israel.
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) November 8, 2020
Trump’s feathers were also ruffled by the Israeli prime minster’s video recording on 20 January 2021 congratulating Biden, this time after he stepped into office.
Congratulations President @JoeBiden and Vice President @KamalaHarris on your historic inauguration.
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) January 20, 2021
President Biden, you and I have had a warm personal friendship going back many decades. pic.twitter.com/3cO4Zb1o1Q
“For Bibi Netanyahu, before the ink was even dry, to do a message, and not only a message, to do a tape to Joe Biden talking about their great, great friendship – they didn’t have a friendship, because if they did, [the Obama administration] wouldn’t have done the Iran deal. And guess what, now they’re going to do it again,” Trump said.
The billionaire went on to list off some of the things he did for Netanyahu, including having the US recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, which Tel Aviv took control over in 1967 and annexed in 1981. “That was a big deal. People say that was a $10 billion gift. I did it right before the election, which helped [Netanyahu] a lot…he would have lost the election if it wasn’t for me. So he tied. He went up a lot after I did it. He went up 10 points or 15 points after I did Golan Heights,” Trump insisted.
The former president also stressed that his decision to unilaterally scrap the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Iran nuclear deal in 2018 was “because of my relations with Israel,” and claimed that if he had not pulled out of the deal, “Israel would have been destroyed maybe by now.”
5 June 2019, 12:52 GMT
Trump’s candid comments on Netanyahu are the second time he’s made frank remarks about the United States’ relationship with Israel in recent weeks. In late October, the former president accidentally said the quiet part out loud and raised eyebrows after complaining that Israel no longer has sufficient control of US Congress. “The biggest change I’ve seen in Congress is Israel literally owned Congress – you understand that – 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And it was so powerful. And today it’s almost the opposite…They had such power, Israel had such incredible power – and rightly – over Congress, and now it doesn’t. It’s incredible, actually,” Trump said in a radio interview.
Last month, in a prerecorded address to the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual meeting in Las Vegas, Trump listed off his administration’s pro-Israeli policies, and boasted that “no president has ever been a better friend to the state of Israel and I’m very proud of that.”
