Trump says Israel ‘would have been lost’ under any another president

Donald Trump dramatically declared that Israel ‘would not exist’ if it were not for his 2024 reelection during a marathon call with Fox & Friends on Tuesday.

Trump, 80, made the claim about ten minutes into the half-hour long ‘update’ on the war in Iran.

‘If they had a nuclear weapon, you would not have Israel around,’ the president first said of Iran.  ‘Frankly, if I weren’t president of the United States, Israel today would not exist.’

Hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade did not immediately react to the sudden proclamation.

Kilmeade, 62, instead followed up with a question about the US’s current strategy and whether the president had seen plans ‘on paper’ that made him in confident in its ability to root out the regime’s nuclear program and funding of terrorist groups.  

‘We have a blockade up there right now and only ships that we want to get through, get through,’ Trump said of the Strait of Hormuz, which the Iranian military vowed to keep blocked in a statement.  

‘Iran doesn’t control the strait – we control the strait,’ Trump insisted. ‘Now, they can drop a mines and screw things up, but we control the strait.’

Donald Trump, 80, declared that Israel ‘would not exist’ if it were not for him during a half-hour long ‘update’ on the Iran War with Fox News Tuesday morning 

Hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade did not immediately react, with Kilmeade instead moving on the conversation 

The statement was fundamentally at odds with one offered by the spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, Ebrahim Zolfaghari, on Tuesday morning as well.

‘The damages to vessels that were damaged during the imposed war against Islamic Iran due to the creation of insecurity by the US military and the violation of the illegal and unsafe route south of the Strait of Hormuz will be paid from Iran’s frozen ᴀssets,’ Zolfaghari said in a statement carried by Iranian state media.

The statement slammed a compensation proposal touted by Trump on Friday that promised Iran would now foot the bill for any damage sustained to vessels during the now-five-month-long war.

The funds, Trump added, would come from still-frozen Iranian ᴀssets that leaders agreed in June would be unfrozen – one of the provisions of the since-stalled 14-point US-Iran agreement in mid-June that Kilmeade already criticized this month.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps promptly called Trump’s proposal ‘illegal’, while framing the past five months of fighting as an ‘imposed war’ started by the US.

Trump wrote on Truth Social the day before: ‘Please let this statement serve to represent, until further notice, that from this point forth, any and all damages done to Ships, Cargo, or anything related thereto, will be paid for by Iranian Money that the United States has in its possession, and controls.’

On Tuesday, after his call with Fox, Trump spoke at the funeral service of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in attendance. The two also met at the White House beforehand.

Trump expressed frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the call. The foreign leader attended the funeral of late Senator Lindsey Graham later Tuesday

Trump attended as well and was a featured speaker. Iran is pushing back against the president’s recent pivots when it comes to ending the conflict, which began with strikes from both the US and Israel on February 28 

Trump hinted at being frustrated with the foreign leader to Fox News.

‘I don’t need Bibi to tell me that,’ Trump told Earhardt, after she asked about the prime minister’s recent promise to reporter to present the president with evidence that Iran is still developing its nuclear program to justify his ongoing strikes. 

‘Bibi is telling me that because he wants me to stay involved,’ Trump snapped. ‘I heard Bibi announce that. I said, “Why didn’t you just tell it to me? Why do you have to announce it to the world?”‘ 

‘I know exactly what’s going on at Pickaxe [Mountain]. It’s not a big problem. We took out their nuclear site, and we’ll have to take out Pickaxe if we don’t make a deal,’ Trump continued.  

Pickaxe Mountain, known in Farsi as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, is a tunnel complex Iran has been carving into a mountainside near its Natanz enrichment site. It is buried so deep that weapons experts doubt even America’s most powerful bunker-buster could reach it. 

Iran has denied that any nuclear facility exists at the site, as it did when US outlets first reported accelerated construction there in 2025.

The US and Israel have been trading daily strikes with Iran since February 28. The Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil flows, has been effective closed since the conflict began.