Report: Trump telling allies he wants Netanyahu 'impeached'
Former US President remains furious with Netanyahu and continues to criticize him in closed conversations, reports Rolling Stone.
According to the report, which cited two sources familiar with the matter, Trump in recent days has had phone calls with various pro-Israel GOP allies and donors who want to know how Trump would handle Israeli-Palestinian Arab matters if reelected.
Those sources added that Trump has relayed a few ideas he has discussed with policy advisers — including cutting off all aid to Palestinian Arabs and encouraging other nations to do the same, as well as capturing and extraditing certain Hamas figures. But during these private conversations, Trump has also spent an inordinate amount of time aggressively trashing Netanyahu, the sources claimed.
According to the sources, in a recurring comment Trump has yet to voice publicly, the former President has said since Saturday’s Hamas attack on Israel that Netanyahu should be “impeached” by the Knesset because the assault occurred on his watch.
Trump has also asked multiple longtime advisers if he should now publicly call for Netanyahu to step down as Prime Minister. Some confidants and allies have recently recommended that he not do this this week, as the dead are still being counted and a major war seems underway, according to Rolling Stone.
The report follows Trump’s public speech in Florida on Wednesday night, in which he criticized Netanyahu over the elimination of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was eliminated in a US air strike in Iraq in 2020.
In the speech, Trump claimed Netanyahu was no help in the effort to eliminate Soleimani, but later tried to take credit for it.
“I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing. I will say that. And so, when I see sometimes the intelligence– you talk about the intelligence or you talk about some of the things that went wrong over the last week, they’ve gotta straighten it out because they’re fighting – potentially – a very big force, potentially Iran. And when they have people saying the wrong things, everything they say is being digested by these people because they’re vicious and they’re smart, and boy are they vicious ’cause nobody’s ever seen the kind of sight that we’ve seen. Nobody’s ever seen it. But they cannot play games,” Trump said.
So, we were disappointed by that. Very disappointed, but we did the job ourself, but it was absolute precision, magnificent, beautiful job. And then Bibi tried to take credit for it. That didn’t make me feel too good, but that’s all right. So, they gotta strengthen themselves up,” he added.
Commenting on Israel’s current war against Hamas, the former President hinted that it occurred because the 2020 election was “rigged”.
"If the election wasn't rigged, there would be nobody even thinking about going into Israel," said Trump.
While Trump and Netanyahu were close during Trump’s time in the White House, Trump infamously cursed Netanyahu in an interview with journalist Barak Ravid in December of 2021. The former President had taken issue with the fact that Netanyahu was one of the first leaders to congratulate Joe Biden after his election win.
"I haven’t spoken to him since," Trump said of Netanyahu. "F” him."
Netanyahu was recently asked about his relationship with Trump in an interview with CNN.
"I got a note from him a few months ago, when I won the elections," Netanyahu said, adding that it said, Congratulations
I appreciate what President Trump did," Netanyahu said, speaking of their current relationship. "He moved the embassy to Jerusalem, he recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, he recognized our sovereignty over the Golan Heights, he went out of what I thought was a disastrous Iran agreement."
"I've been long enough in the political life to put aside periodic ebb and flow of emotions and to look at the substantive positions of what leaders and allies have done. I respect what was done and I appreciate it... I don't particularly care about it," he said, referring to Trump's disparaging remark
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