U.S. President Donald Trump credited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday for guiding the Jewish state to victory over a “force the likes of which very few countries could have handled.”
JNS asked Trump about his relationship with the Israeli premier.
“He’s a wartime prime minister,” Trump said of Netanyahu. “He’s taken Israel through a very dangerous period of drama.”
Standing alongside Netanyahu at a press conference outside the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., Trump said that under other leadership, Israel “might not exist right now.”
“That’s a pretty big statement, but it’s true,” Trump said. “If you had the wrong prime minister, Israel right now would not exist.”
Trump expressed surprise that Netanyahu has yet to receive a pardon from Israeli President Isaac Herzog over the premier’s ongoing trial for alleged bribery.
“How do you not give a pardon?” Trump said. “I spoke to the president. He tells me it’s on its way.”
Additionally, in response to the JNS query, Trump addressed Iran and reports that the Islamic Republic has restarted production of ballistic missiles as well as nuclear enrichment. Trump insisted that the preferred outcome would come through negotiations rather than another military campaign.
“Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again,” Trump said. “If they are, we are going to have to knock them down. We’ll knock the hell out of them, but hopefully that’s not happening.
“I heard Iran wants to make a deal. If they want to make a deal, that’s much smarter,” Trump said. “They could have made a deal the last time before we went through a big attack on them and they decided not to make the deal. They wish they made that deal.”
