President Joe Biden has called Benjamin Netanyahu “a bad f**king guy” amid fears that the Israeli prime minister wants to pull the U.S. into a bigger Middle East conflict, Politico reported Sunday.
Columnist Jonathan Martin attributed the president’s latest four-letter outburst to people who’ve talked to the president.
Biden was previously said to have called former president and probable 2024 opponent Donald Trump a “sick fuck.” The White House declined comment on that alleged profanity, but Biden’s former press secretary, Jen Psaki, expressed no doubt the president used the salty language to describe Trump. Fellow MSNBC host Joe Scarborough even encouraged the commander-in-chief to unleash unvarnished private anger at his rival in public.
Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates, however, strongly denied the president’s alleged comment about Netanyahu, “The president did not say that, nor would he,” Bates said, per Politico. The two leaders have “a decades-long relationship that is respectful in public and in private.”
In a column about how Biden’s support for Israel in the Gaza war is costing him younger voters, Martin reported the president is “deeply suspicious” of Netanyahu and fears the Israeli leader wants to coax the U.S. into a larger Middle East war that drags more American weapons into the fray ― and even American troops.
Biden’s backing of Israel’s prolonged counter-offensive after Hamas militants’ Oct. 7 attack on the country is also diminishing his support among some Arab and Muslim Americans.
In late January, Arab and Muslim leaders and voters in Michigan canceled a meeting with the president.
