Trump’s declaration that Netanyahu knows his place comes after months of open tension. The Israeli prime minister is desperate for the photo op.
JERUSALEM. Benjamin Netanyahu called Donald Trump on Friday to congratulate him on America’s 250th Independence Day. The Israeli prime minister told the US president that the United States is “a guarantor of global freedom” and that Israel values the close relationship between the two countries. They agreed to meet soon in Washington.
The next day, Trump told Axios that the meeting could happen as early as next week, after he returns from the NATO summit in Turkey on July 8. Then came the message wrapped inside the message.
“We get along very good,” Trump said. “[Netanyahu] knows who the boss is.”
The line is vintage Trump: transactional, proprietary, and pointed. It frames the coming visit not as a summit between equals but as a summons from a superior. And it comes at a moment when the US-Israel relationship, often described by both leaders as the strongest in history, is showing genuine cracks beneath the public reassurances.
The fraying relationship
The last time the two men sat down together was February 11, 2026, in the White House Situation Room. Netanyahu presented the plan for a joint US-Israel strike on Iran. Weeks later, American and Israeli warplanes hit Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile facilities. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening salvo.
That operation was Netanyahu’s crowning strategic gambit. But the war that followed has not unfolded the way he sold it. The strikes triggered a regional crisis that has drawn in Hezbollah, disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and cost both countries billions. Trump, who ran on ending wars, found himself managing a new one he inherited the day the first bombs fell on Tehran.
In the months since, the relationship has soured. Trump signed a memorandum of understanding extending a ceasefire with Iran over Netanyahu’s objections. He pressed the Israeli prime minister to restrain IDF operations in Lebanon. Last month, Trump lashed out at Netanyahu in private and public, calling him “crazy” and accusing him of ingratitude after Israel escalated its campaign against Hezbollah despite US warnings.
People close to Trump now say many of his closest advisers believe Netanyahu was wrong about everything since the February meeting. A US official told Axios that the president’s inner circle has turned sharply against the Israeli leader, viewing him as a destabilizing force who promised a quick win and delivered a quagmire.
The domestic calculation
For Netanyahu, a White House visit is not a luxury. It is a lifeline. Israel holds elections in October, and the prime minister is trailing. Polls show his coalition bloc stuck at around 50 seats, well short of the 61 needed to govern. The opposition, led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett, is gaining ground. Nearly half of Israelis say they do not believe Netanyahu’s account of the events that led to the October 7 attack.
A handshake with Trump in the Oval Office, broadcast on Israeli news, is the kind of image Netanyahu needs to remind his base that he still commands the most important relationship in Israeli foreign policy. But the optics will be hard to control. If Trump uses the meeting to publicly lecture or patronize Netanyahu, as his “knows who the boss is” remark suggests he might, the visit could backfire.
The prime minister’s office is aware of the risk. Netanyahu’s call on Friday was an attempt to reset the tone, to frame himself as a valued partner rather than a supplicant. But he is the one who asked for the meeting. He is the one trailing in the polls. And he is the one whose strategic bet on Iran blew up in ways that forced Trump to clean up the mess.
The Republican split over Israel
Netanyahu’s troubles are not confined to the other side of the aisle. The Republican coalition that once offered blanket support for Israel is fracturing in real time.
Tucker Carlson, whose podcast reaches millions of MAGA voters, has spent the past year building a case against the Trump administration’s Israel policy. He has called the Iran war a betrayal of the America First doctrine. He has accused Trump of being a “slave” to Netanyahu. He has platformed critics of the war and suggested that Zionist influence has captured US foreign policy. Carlson recently said he is done with the Republican Party.
The split is not just talk. A POLITICO poll from May found that self-identified MAGA voters and mainstream Republicans diverge sharply on Israel. Younger conservatives, shaped by the America First worldview and skeptical of foreign entanglements, are far less supportive of Netanyahu’s government than the older generation of GOP voters who were raised on Reagan-era pro-Israel orthodoxy.
Trump has hit back at his conservative critics, reposting attacks on Carlson and dismissing him as a “low IQ person.” But the rift is real and it limits Trump’s flexibility. If he embraces Netanyahu too warmly, he alienates the Carlson wing of his base. If he distances himself from Israel, he risks losing evangelical and neoconservative supporters who still see the US-Israel alliance as sacred. He is trying to split the difference: granting Netanyahu the meeting while making sure everyone knows who holds the power.
What comes next
A White House visit in the coming weeks would give both men something they need. Netanyahu gets the photo op and the domestic boost. Trump gets to show he can still command the relationship on his terms. But the substance of the meeting matters more than the staging.
The unresolved questions are large. Will Trump press Netanyahu to accept a permanent ceasefire in Lebanon? Will he demand changes to Israel’s military posture toward Iran? Will he extract concessions as the price of continued US support?
Trump’s remark to Axios suggests the answer to all of these is yes. Netanyahu knows who the boss is. The question is what the boss will demand.