Ammon News - U.S. ​President Donald Trump acknowledged calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "crazy" in an expletive-filled phone exchange over fighting in Lebanon, while the ‌U.S. was trying to negotiate an end to hostilities with Iran.

In an interview broadcast on Wednesday, Trump was asked whether he had called the longtime Israeli leader "effing crazy" and accused him of ingratitude, paraphrasing a report by Axios.

"I did," Trump told the "Pod Force One" podcast. "I wouldn't say angry. I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with ​Lebanon, you know."

Trump went on to say he and Netanyahu get along very well.

According to the Axios report, which cited an unidentified ​U.S. official, Trump said to Netanyahu in a call on Monday: "You're fucking crazy. You'd be in prison if it ⁠weren't for me. I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this."

Trump said in the interview: "At some point, I said, ​Bibi, we got to stop this. We got to stop it."

NETANYAHU CITES COMMON GOALS
Netanyahu, asked about the Axios report, declined to offer details of the conversation ​but said his relationship with Trump had not changed.

"We have common goals. Sometimes we have, as in the best of families, you have these tactical disagreements," he said in an interview on CNBC on Wednesday.

"He's been the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House, and he respects me; I respect him. We always find a ​way to work out our differences."

Iran has said it will not agree to a deal with the United States to end the war that ​Trump and Netanyahu launched in late February unless a ceasefire also covers Lebanon, which Israel invaded in March in pursuit of the Iran-aligned Hezbollah militia that fired across the ‌border in ⁠support of Tehran.