WASHINGTON — President Trump gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “the business” in the past, US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz revealed to “Pod Force One.”
Waltz rebuffed accusations from former counterterrorism boss Joe Kent and others that Netanyahu has manipulated Trump into war against Iran, insisting that the president is definitely the one “calling the shots.”
“I don’t think for a second anyone should believe that anyone, world leader, advisor, or otherwise, is walking into the Oval and pushing President Trump around,” Waltz stressed to Miranda Devine, host of “Pod Force One.”
“I want to make it clear, these are his calls. And that’s just not how it works. And I’ve been in the room where he’s given Bibi the business. We all saw it when Prime Minister Netanyahu called the Prime Minister of Qatar, for which there is no love lost, and apologized for the hit in downtown Qatar.
“President Trump’s calling the shots. He is commander-in-chief, period.”
Back in September, during a visit to the White House, Trump got Netanyahu to formally express “deep regret” to his Qatari counterpart over the Sept. 9, 2025, strike in Doha.
That strike in Doha was intended to hit Hamas leadership during hostage negotiations that Qatar was mediating. Israel had long been frustrated at Qatar for allowing top Hamas officials to live within its borders.
Ultimately, Israeli officials privately acknowledged the strike failed to kill the Hamas leadership. But it killed at least six people, including a Qatari security official, and injured four.
The White House released an image of Netanyahu making the call from the White House.
While Trump and Netanyahu have a famously chummy rapport, the US president has occasionally bashed the Israeli PM in the past, including for acknowledging former President Joe Biden’s 2020 win and allegedly backing out of the strike to kill former Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.
Last year, members of the Trump administration were unhappy about Israel’s decision to carry out strikes in Syria despite the president trying to mend fences with its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Waltz also broadly praised America’s Gulf allies for “standing strong” despite weathering sporadic attacks from Iran amid Operation Epic Fury.
Every week, Post columnist Miranda Devine sits down for exclusive and candid conversations with the most influential disruptors in Washington on ‘Pod Force One.’ Subscribe here!
“I think this, shoot in all directions approach from the Iranian regime is going to, over the long term, really backfire,” Waltz predicted. “Because of the neighborhood they sit in and some shared economic interests.”
“Qatar, that’s sharing the world’s largest gas field with Iran, always took a little bit of a neutral approach; they wanted to kind of tiptoe carefully,” he added. “Well, now that Iran has fired at their hospitals, hotels, ports, airports, neighborhoods, they’ve had it. Iran is now a declared enemy.”
Waltz further mused that while “Gulf Arabs were fighting a lot amongst themselves” months ago, now they are “completely unified.”
He recalled how the UN adopted a resolution to condemn Iran earlier this month after the regime began striking Gulf allies that weren’t involved in the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
“This is where diplomacy can work, because it shows how isolated Iran is,” Waltz added. “Russia and China, sitting right behind me, had the opportunity to veto it, and they chose not to. They backed away and let the Gulf Arabs take that action, which was really important.”