President Trump bristled at the notion of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tricking him into a war with Iran, although evidence suggests that Israel has had a significant role in starting and prolonging the conflict.
“What do you say to people who claim that Bibi Netanyahu tricked you into going into Iran?” New York Post’s Miranda Devine asked the president in an interview on Pod Force One released on Wednesday.
“I heard that the other day for the very first time, I said, ‘He tricked me?’ I’m the one that started it because, again, I don’t wanna bore anybody, but I started it because we can’t let them have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “Now that pertains to Israel because they probably would’ve been the first one to get hit. There would be no Israel.… If there wasn’t me, there would be no Israel right now.… If I didn’t do that attack … Iran would’ve had a nuclear weapon and they would’ve used it almost immediately.”
DEVINE: What do you say to people who claim Bibi Netanyahu tricked you into going into Iran?
TRUMP: They’re just the enemy. They’re dumocrats. They want transgender mutilization of our children. He tricked me? I’m the one that started it. I’ll tell you what — if there wasn’t… pic.twitter.com/sWTE8xIYKW
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 3, 2026
U.S. intelligence has confirmed that Iran was not on the brink of building and using a nuclear bomb. That’s a narrative that Israel, alongside Iran war hawks, pushed to justify the current attacks on Iran and Lebanon, as they have been doing for decades. At the beginning of the war, Secretary Marco Rubio himself admitted that the U.S. went to war because the administration “knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces.”
Trump also confirmed his profanity-laden argument with Netanyahu, as reported by Axios on Monday. Barak Ravid wrote that the president told him he was “fucking crazy” for sabotaging negotiations by continuing to bomb Lebanon and that he’d “be in prison” if it weren’t for him. “Everybody hates you now,” Trump reportedly told him. “Everybody hates Israel because of this.”
“Is that true? Did you speak to him in those terms?” Devine asked.
“I did. I wouldn’t say angry. I was a little bit … perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon, you know?” Trump said. “I said, ‘Bibi, we gotta stop this. We gotta stop it.’”
Lebanon’s health ministry has reported that over 3,000 people have been killed in Israel’s constant bombardment of civilian infrastructure, with over 10,000 wounded and over one million displaced.