President’s impromptu news conference in company of Benjamin Netanyahu touched on Gaza, the possibility of further strikes on Iran’s nuclear program and Israel’s tensions with Syria
Hosting Benjamin Netanyahu for the fifth time since returning to the White House 11 months ago, Donald Trump gave a performance on Monday that provided a microcosm of his now customary disdain for foreign policy protocol.
In an impromptu 15 minute news conference on the steps of Mar-a-Lago, Trump first offered an offhand, and vaguely dismissive, acknowledgement of the unusual frequency of the Israeli prime minister’s visits by asking journalists: “Do you recognize this guy?”
He then proceeded to trample diplomatic convention in characteristically cavalier style by declaring that he would back Netanyahu “immediately” if he ordered another attack on Iran’s nuclear installations, while confirming that he had personally asked Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, to pardon the prime minister in a bribery and corruption trial – apparently heedless of the appearance of interfering in the affairs of a sovereign state.
More startlingly still, he appeared to accept Russia’s claim that Ukraine had attacked Vladimir Putin’s residence overnight while acknowledging that he had no independent US intelligence confirmation – preferring to accept the Russian president’s word, even as Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian leader who Trump hosted the previous day, denounced the story as a “lie”.
