U.S. President Donald Trump announced in a phone interview with Axios that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested a meeting with him at the White House and that the meeting could take place next week.
Trump said, "We get along very well. (Netanyahu) knows who the boss is here."
This will be the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders since February, when Netanyahu presented a joint war plan against Iran in the Situation Room.
An Israeli official said that next week could be an early date due to Trump's visit to the NATO summit in Turkey on July 7-8, but that the meeting "could take place next week."
A statement from Netanyahu's office noted that the prime minister called Trump on Friday on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of U.S. Independence Day and that the leaders "agreed to meet in the U.S. soon."
Trump's statements on Iran
Trump said he followed the funeral of Iran's former religious leader Ali Khamenei, whom he claimed was killed in a joint U.S.-Israel operation on the first day of the war.
Describing Iranians as the side "begging to make a deal," Trump suggested that the two sides decided to pause negotiations for a week until the events related to Khamenei's funeral are completed, and that neither side would fire on the other during that time.
Trump said, "They're all there. We could wipe them all out with a single shot, but we won't do that because then we'd have no one left to negotiate with."
Noting that he was surprised to see some Iranians crying at the funeral, Trump said he thought people hated Khamenei and added, "Maybe they're fake tears."
