Leslie Picker (Reporter) 00:00.000
President Trump set to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Maralago today. Ayman Javers joins us with a look at what's at stake. Ayman.
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 00:09.200
Yeah, Leslie, you're right. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet with President Donald Trump at Maralago this afternoon and the discussion could turn to a possible additional US strike against Iran's ballistic missile program. Also potentially on the
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 00:23.720
agenda for this conversation, discussion of the reconstruction of Gaza, which is expected to be difficult and expensive This will be Netanyahu's sixth meeting with Trump this year. Netanyahu visited Mar-a-Lago most recently in July of 2024 before President Trump was re-elected
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 00:40.680
to his second term. Now, President Trump has been extremely proud of that US strike on Iran that he authorized in June boasting that it set the country's nuclear program back by years. He displays a small model of a stealth bomber in the Oval Office and he often recounts how the
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 00:56.400
pilots trained for and executed that grueling around the world flight and combat strike, but it's not clear despite that how much appetite Trump would have for additional strikes, even if there is intelligence suggesting that Iran is reconstructing its nuclear program. So the
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 01:12.440
meeting is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. today and as of now, press is expected to be invited in for at least a portion of that session. So we should get a better sense of the positions of both countries by later on today, guys. Back over to you.
Leslie Picker (Reporter) 01:25.280
Amen, is there a sense of how the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu is at this disjuncture. There were some reports over the weekend that I was reading that said that many of uh other administration officials have uh become less enchanted with Netanyahu over time. Do we
Leslie Picker (Reporter) 01:40.200
have a sense that President Trump feels the same way?
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 01:44.120
Well, I think it's a it's a real question right now. And one of the questions will be for Benjamin Netanyahu. How willing is he to allow some sort of political deal on the reconstruction of Gaza? I think President Trump clearly wants to move forward with some kind of rebuilding
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 02:00.000
in some kind of political stabilization in Gaza after all the carnage and chaos that we've seen there. Netanyahu has been unwilling to allow the Palestinian Authority, for example, to be part of that deal to regovern that region. And so I think the question for Trump is, does
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 02:17.280
Netanyahu become more of an impediment to what he wants than a partner, which is the way he's seen Netanyahu, you know, here to fore. So I I think this is a real fulcrum point in the relationship between these two figures who Both put enormous amounts of stock in the
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 02:32.880
relationship with each other in terms of their governing coalitions domestically.