LONDON: US President Donald Trump said he trusted no one in politics when asked whether he trusted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even as he described their relationship as “very good.”
“I don’t trust anybody, honestly,” Trump told the conservative US cable news outlet Newsmax on Thursday. “In the world of politics, I don’t trust anybody.”
Trump nevertheless praised their military partnership against Iran, which started on Feb. 28, as “very successful.” He also said Israeli officials wanted him to get involved in the country’s Oct. 27 election.
“Well, they’d like me to be,” he said, adding that “the people of Israel, they say if I ran for prime minister, I’d get 99 percent of them.”
The remarks followed questions earlier in the week about whether Trump would endorse Netanyahu, who has long made his ties to the US president a feature of his election campaigns.
Asked Tuesday on the White House lawn whether he intended to endorse a candidate, Trump replied: “We haven’t even thought about it.”
When a reporter noted his past endorsements, Trump left open the possibility. “Well, we may be. I may be doing something,” he said.
The prospect of an endorsement comes amid reported disagreements between the two leaders over the conduct of the war against Iran.
Netanyahu began the year declaring that he stood “shoulder to shoulder” with Trump as their countries launched the war, according to an AP report. By late September, however, as world leaders gathered in New York for the UN General Assembly, the two had no plans to meet or even be in the same city.
Netanyahu’s schedule in New York included meetings with only a handful of leaders before his address to the assembly. Observers viewed the absence of a meeting with Trump as a sign of growing strain between the allies.
As the conflict has dragged on, Trump has sought to counter perceptions in Washington that Netanyahu drew him into an increasingly unpopular war — one the president had described as a “little excursion” that would last only weeks.
Netanyahu has also faced international criticism over Israel’s war in Gaza and settler violence in the occupied West Bank.