AP News53%
Trump acknowledges calling Netanyahu ‘crazy’ and says Israel is complicating peace talks with Iran 21%
By KAREEM CHEHAYEB0% MATTHEW LEE0% JOSH BOAK55% SARAH EL DEEB0%
6/3/2026, 9:57:41 AM
Topics: Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Iran, Middle East, International Relations, Ceasefire, War
BS Summary: This article contains 26 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Ambiguity (Equivocation), with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 20.7% saturation with 220 hits. Analysis detected 1,986 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,064 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 34.9% and a BS Rank of 21% (17,417 of 21,886 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 79.60% of the article peer group.
President Donald Trump acknowledged criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “crazy” in a phone call that involved expletives, saying he was “a little bit perturbed” that Israel’s fighting with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon was holding back peace talks with Iran.
But even as the U.S. president conceded the tensions in an interview released Wednesday, he insisted that his relationship with Netanyahu was solid and that they connected, in part, because they are both “wartime” leaders.
“We’ve worked very well together.
I like Bibi a lot.
And I work very well with him,” Trump told The New York Post’s “Pod Force One.”
In an interview on the American business-news channel CNBC, Netanyahu responded that he and Trump sometimes have “tactical disagreements” but have “common goals” and “agree on the main things.”
“He respects me.
I respect him.
We always find a way to work out our differences,” the prime minister said.
The president’s comments about the Monday call offered a sign of the growing pressure he faces to resolve the Iran war as higher energy prices and economic uncertainty threaten Republican prospects in the midterm elections and hamper global commerce.
Talks have dragged on for weeks and have been strained by Israel’s broadening war with the Iranian-backed militia group in Lebanon.
The conflicts have become increasingly intertwined as Iran insists that any potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon.
Israel and Lebanon agreed Wednesday to renew their fragile ceasefire and create a number of “pilot” security zones inside Lebanon from which Hezbollah militants would be banned.
In a joint statement released after a fourth round of U.S.-mediated talks at the State Department, the two sides said the ceasefire “is contingent on a complete cessation of Hezbollah fire and the evacuation of all Hezbollah operatives” from areas south of the Litani River, which is roughly 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the northern Israel-Lebanon border.
It was not immediately clear how the security zones would be established but the agreement calls for the Lebanese army to take full control of those areas.
“These steps will enable progress towards a comprehensive peace and security agreement,” the statement said.
“All countries reaffirmed that the future of the relationship between Israel and Lebanon must be decided by the two sovereign governments.
They rejected any attempt, by any state or non-state actor, to hold Lebanon’s future hostage.”
Hezbollah is not part of the Israel-Lebanon talks, which have been held at the ambassadorial level in Washington since the beginning of last month.
“All parties condemned Iran’s attacks on countries in the region, and ongoing activities that undermine stability throughout the Middle East, whether through support for proxies and all other acts of aggression,” the statement said.
A new round of discussions will be held during the week of June 22 with an eye toward “reaching a comprehensive agreement.”
Trump remained noncommittal about a timeline for settling the Iran conflict, saying the Strait of Hormuz might stay blocked through the Labor Day holiday on Sept.
7.
He has insisted that Iran stop any efforts that could lead to a nuclear weapon and that the strait be reopened for shipments of oil and natural gas.
“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,” Trump said.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his late father, is “involved” in peace talks, Trump added.
“They have a lot of respect for him,” the president said in the interview.
Trump said that Khamenei is not doing well due to wounds sustained in an airstrike, but “they say he’s giving approval because that’s the way it has been for a long, long time.”
Khamenei’s father was killed in an airstrike when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February.
Meanwhile, the U.S.
House for the first time approved a war powers resolution that would halt the U.S. military action against Iran, defying Trump as a handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to end the conflict.
The roll call Wednesday was 215-208, but the next steps are uncertain.
Trump would likely reject any measure from Congress to limit his commander-in-chief authority.
Israeli strikes over southern Lebanon continued, especially in and around the battered cities of Tyre and Nabatiyeh.
Two overnight strikes near Tyre killed four Syrians and two Palestinians.
Israel warned the Christian neighborhoods in Tyre that Hezbollah members were among them.
Many Lebanese Shiite Muslims fled to those areas in recent days because they were spared from the aerial bombardment along the Mediterranean coast.
After the warning, the Lebanese army deployed to the Christian district of Tyre in an effort to prevent Israeli attacks there and to show that Hezbollah has no armed presence in the area.
Israel launched an invasion of southern Lebanon days after the latest war was sparked on March 2, when Iran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets toward northern Israel in solidarity with Iran.
Israeli troops have pushed deeper into Lebanon over the past week, as Hezbollah continues to claim rocket and drone attacks.
The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,468 people in Lebanon and displaced 1.2 million people.
According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 27 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon.
Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.
Many residents of southern Lebanon remained in villages near the hostilities or returned to areas where strikes occurred after evacuation warnings.
The Al-Abdallah family returned to their home in Marwaniyeh, which they left because they thought the village was unsafe following earlier strikes.
A day later, two rockets hit the home, bringing down the three-story building and killing six family members, said the brother of Hassan Al-Abdallah, who was killed.
Ahmed Al-Abdallah, 13, was thrown away from the building by the force of the blasts and was the only member of his family to survive.
His uncle, Eissa Al-Abdallah, said the boy has two broken legs and shrapnel wounds all over his body.
“What good is talking now?
They are gone, and nothing will bring them back,” the uncle told The Associated Press in a phone call Tuesday.
“This land costs blood.”
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