President Donald Trump confirmed he called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "crazy" during a Monday phone call, telling The New York Post's "Pod Force One" podcast that he was "a little bit perturbed" by Israel's continued military operations in Lebanon, operations he sees as an obstacle to closing a deal with Iran.
The interview, released Wednesday, laid bare a tension that has simmered for weeks: Trump wants a diplomatic resolution with Tehran on its nuclear program and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, but Israel's ground campaign against Hezbollah keeps grinding forward, complicating the broader picture.
Trump did not back away from the remark. But he framed it as the kind of blunt talk that happens between allies who trust each other, not as a rupture. He said the two leaders share a bond forged under pressure.
"We've worked very well together. I like Bibi a lot. And I work very well with him."
He added that he and Netanyahu connect, in part, because they are both "wartime" leaders. The word choice was deliberate. Trump wants the world, and Netanyahu, to understand that he sees himself as managing a live conflict, not watching one from the sidelines.
Trump's frustration traces back to a simple strategic priority: he has insisted that Iran stop any efforts that could lead to a nuclear weapon and that the Strait of Hormuz be reopened for shipments of oil and natural gas. Both demands require Iranian cooperation. And Iranian cooperation, in Trump's view, gets harder when Israel is still fighting Iran's chief proxy in Lebanon.
Asked whether the Strait of Hormuz might remain blocked through the Labor Day holiday on September 7, Trump was characteristically direct, and noncommittal.
"I don't know. I mean, I think it could be (closed through Labor Day), but I think it's unlikely. I think that we'll have it. I think this will resolve itself fairly quickly."
That kind of optimism carries a price tag. Higher energy prices and economic uncertainty tied to the Hormuz disruption are already weighing on Republicans heading into midterm elections. Every week the strait stays blocked is a week American consumers feel the pinch at the pump and in their utility bills.
Trump offered a window into the state of play with Iran's leadership. He said Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his late father after the elder Khamenei was killed in airstrikes at the end of March, when the U.S. and Israel struck Iran, is "involved" in peace talks. But Trump noted that Khamenei is not doing well, citing injuries sustained in an airstrike.
Despite Khamenei's condition, Trump suggested the supreme leader retains final authority over Iran's negotiating posture.
"They have a lot of respect for him."
He added that Iranian officials "say he's giving approval because that's the way it has been for a long, long time." The implication is clear: no deal closes without the supreme leader's sign-off, however diminished his physical state.
The State Department reported that progress was made during the first day of U.S.-brokered talks on Tuesday. But "progress" is a word diplomats use when they have nothing concrete to announce, and the fighting on the ground tells a different story.
On Wednesday, the same day Trump's interview dropped, an Israeli strike hit a car on a busy highway just south of Beirut, in the town of Khaldeh. The strike came without warning. It was not immediately clear whether the person targeted was killed. The attack landed hours before the second day of Lebanon-Israel talks in Washington was set to begin.
Not long after the Khaldeh strike, the Israeli military said it intercepted what it called a "hostile aircraft" coming from southern Lebanon. The military did not immediately blame Hezbollah for the incident. Hezbollah, for its part, has not claimed a cross-border attack since agreeing Monday to end its strikes on northern Israel under a U.S.-brokered arrangement.
That Monday agreement also committed Israel to stop striking Beirut's southern suburbs. But the deal came together only after Israel announced it was going to launch strikes across sprawling urban neighborhoods near the Lebanese capital, a threat that served as leverage, or provocation, depending on your vantage point.
The arrangement has not stopped the broader violence. Israeli strikes continued in and around the southern Lebanese cities of Tyre and Nabatiyeh. Overnight, two strikes near Tyre killed four Syrians and two Palestinians. The Lebanese army deployed to the Christian district of Tyre after an Israeli warning, trying to demonstrate that Hezbollah has no armed presence in the area and hoping to prevent further Israeli attacks there.
The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,468 people in Lebanon and displaced 1.2 million. Netanyahu's office said at least 27 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon. Two civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
Late Monday, Israel's military announced the death of another soldier in southern Lebanon and said seven more were wounded, three of them severely. Israeli troops have pushed deeper into Lebanon over the past week, even as the diplomatic track in Washington is supposed to be moving toward a comprehensive ceasefire.
Lebanon wants to widen the scope of the Monday agreement into a full ceasefire covering the entire country. Israel wants Hezbollah disarmed immediately before it ends operations and withdraws its troops from dozens of villages and towns. Those two positions are miles apart.
The latest conflict was sparked on March 2, when Iran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets toward northern Israel in solidarity with Iran. Israel launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon days later. A nominal ceasefire went into effect on April 17, but it has done little to halt the fighting. In recent days, many Lebanese Shiite Muslims have fled to Christian areas along the Mediterranean coast, places that have so far been spared from aerial bombardment.
Hezbollah continues to claim rocket and drone attacks even as the diplomatic framework shifts around it. The group's willingness to keep fighting while its patron state negotiates with Washington exposes a fundamental problem: Iran's proxies operate on their own timetable, and no ceasefire holds if the men with the rockets don't honor it.
Trump's candor about the Netanyahu call is notable. Presidents do not usually confirm that they dressed down allied leaders. But Trump has never operated by the usual diplomatic playbook, and the confirmation serves a purpose: it signals to Tehran that Washington is pushing Israel hard, which may give Iranian negotiators reason to stay at the table.
Whether that gamble works depends on whether Netanyahu listens, and whether Iran's injured supreme leader has the will and the authority to close a deal. Trump remained noncommittal about a timeline for settling the conflict, which is itself a kind of honesty. Nobody in Washington, Jerusalem, Beirut, or Tehran knows when this ends.
What is clear is the cost of delay. American consumers pay more for energy. Lebanese civilians flee their homes. Israeli soldiers die in southern Lebanon. And diplomats in Washington report "progress" while the highway south of Beirut absorbs another airstrike.
Trump called Netanyahu "crazy." The real question is whether anyone involved in this conflict is acting sane.
