Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the Trump administration provides him with daily updates on negotiations with Iran, remarks that drew swift criticism from US journalists and commentators.
“I spoke yesterday with Vice President JD Vance. He called me from his plane on his way back from Islamabad. He reported to me in detail, as this administration does every day, about the development of the negotiations,” Netanyahu said at a Cabinet meeting.
“The explosion came from the American side, which could not tolerate Iran’s blatant violation of the agreement to enter into negotiations. The agreement was that firing would cease and the Iranians would immediately open the straits. They did not do it. The Americans could not accept that,” Netanyahu claimed.
The remarks triggered backlash in the US, including from Mark Pocan, a Democratic Congressman from Wisconsin, who wrote on X: “The Trump administration daily reports to Netanyahu on the Iranian war, but not Congress or the American people. Let that sink in.”
Former US National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent who resigned over the Iran war warned that negotiations would fail if the Trump administration fails to stop “giving them access to our decision making”.
“The Israelis push for zero uranium enrichment because they know it’s a poison pill for Iran & will result in the war continuing,” he wrote on X.
Conservative commentator Candace Owens also weighed in, saying Netanyahu “enjoys publicly humiliating Donald Trump and JD Vance.”
The White House did not immediately respond to Netanyahu’s claims.
Separately, Iranian First Vice President Mohammadreza Aref called Netanyahu’s claims “structural humiliation” to the US.
“For the first time in history, a senior official of a government is providing daily briefings to the head of another state,” Aref wrote on X.
“The issue is not us; it is a matter of structural humiliation,” he said. “Do the American people realize that the White House has effectively turned into a “reporting branch” for another regime?
Pakistan mediated a temporary ceasefire between the US and Iran last week, but follow-up negotiations in Islamabad failed to produce a lasting agreement.
Lebanon and Israel have also agreed to hold talks, with their first meeting scheduled in Washington on Tuesday. – AA