After meeting with President Trump in Washington on Tuesday to discuss the Iran war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the talks as “one of the best conversations” he’s ever had with the US president.
“It was a meeting with full cooperation, with mutual support, with understanding on the joint goal that Iran won’t have nuclear weapons, and also other goals,” Netanyahu said after the meeting. “It was one of the best conversations I’ve had with our friend, US President Trump.”
Photos from the Oval Office show Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff were also present at the meeting. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described the talks as “good and productive.”
Ahead of the meeting, media reports said Netanyahu was expected to present Trump with some sort of intelligence to push for US strikes on Pickaxe Mountain, known as Kolang Kouh in Iran, but Tzipi Hotovely, Netanyahu’s communications director, denied the claims.
“There is no truth in the claim that Israel is pushing the US in a certain direction on the Iran issue,” Hotovely said, according to Axios. “The Prime Minister is not telling the US President what to do and is not pushing him in any direction. Both sides want to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons. There are many ways to achieve this goal.”
While the US and Israel continue to insist that the war is about preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, there was no evidence either before the June 2025 war or the current conflict that Iran was pursuing a bomb.
Hotovely also told reporters that Trump didn’t ask for Israel to withdraw from any of the areas IDF soldiers are occupying in Lebanon, Syria, or Gaza. Trump has remained silent about Israel’s constant violations of the US-backed ceasefire deal in Gaza, which have killed more than 1,200 Palestinians since the agreement was signed in October 2025.
The talks on Tuesday marked at least the eighth meeting between Trump and Netanyahu since Trump returned to office in January 2025, demonstrating the closeness of the two world leaders despite media reports suggesting they’ve been at odds. Both Netanyahu and Trump attended the funeral of Sen. Lindsey Graham later in the day.
