PM insists he and Trump have ‘great relationship,’ both agree that Hezbollah must be disarmed; also says Iran ‘playing with fire’ with attacks on Gulf, Israel ‘ready’ for fight
By ToI Staff and Agencies3 June 2026, 8:23 pm
Screengrab of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview with CNBC, June 3, 2026. (CNBC)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed in an interview Wednesday that he held a difficult conversation with US President Donald Trump days earlier, but downplayed the significance of the matter and insisted that he and the American leader agree on “the main things.”
The interview, which was conducted live by CNBC, came hours after Trump himself confirmed reports that he called Netanyahu “fucking crazy” during the Monday phone call, saying he was “perturbed” by the premier’s escalation in fighting in Lebanon.
“I’m not going to get into details of our conversations,” Netanyahu told CNBC.
“We’ve had thousands, well, a lot of them,” he said. “And if you think this is a crisis, you should be in some other conversations. But we’ve always found a way.”
He and Trump agree on “the main things,” Netanyahu insisted, including the necessity of preventing Iran from posing a threat to Israel, the region and the world.
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“This has been a great relationship because he’s been the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House,” he said.
“We have common goals. Sometimes we have, as in the best of families, you have these tactical disagreements,” he said. “We always find a way to work them out. And we do so as great friends. We can disagree in the morning, and by the afternoon, we have common actions. He respects me. I respect him. We always find a way to work out our differences.”
Asked about Trump reportedly telling him he’d “be in prison if it weren’t for me,” Netanyahu said, “I’m not going to get into the details, but he’s been very vocal about the absurdity of this fake trial that I’m going through.”
Trump has repeatedly and publicly demanded that President Isaac Herzog pardon the prime minister, who is in the midst of a lengthy corruption trial. Herzog has since informed the premier that he cannot issue a pardon and has instead urged dialogue between the sides on a potential plea bargain.
Turning to the source of the initial disagreement, Netanyahu told CNBC that he and Trump are aligned on the goal of disarming Hezbollah to achieve peace between Israel and Lebanon.
Hezbollah “is an Iranian proxy that puts all the citizens of Lebanon at gunpoint and uses Lebanon as a platform to launch terror missiles into our cities, to launch killer drones against our civilians,” he said.
“And so if we want to save Lebanon, if we want to get a Lebanese-Israeli peace, as I do, we have to disarm Hezbollah and we have to demilitarize Lebanon,” he added.
“And I know that this is a goal that the president and I share, and that’s what we have to do,” he said.
Asked about Wednesday morning’s Iranian attacks on Kuwait, which killed one and injured several others, Netanyahu said that Iran was “playing with fire.”
“Iran surely knows what the president has said, that if necessary, there’ll be a full-scale return to military action,” Netanyahu said.
“You know, it’s the president’s decision. Israel is ready, and the US forces are ready,” he said. “I think Iran should take that into account. I think they are taking it into account, but they’re playing with fire, that’s clear.”
Netanyahu has given periodic interviews to international media since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack, while largely restricting his interviews with Israeli outlets to those that are considered openly supportive of him.
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