Key Points
- The Israeli prime minister met with Trump after holding talks with Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris.
- Trump said Harris was a "radical left person" and that her remarks about Gaza "weren't very nice pertaining to Israel".
- Netanyahu said he hoped his US trip would lead to a quicker ceasefire deal.
United States Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump sharply criticised his Democratic political rivals and warned of dire consequences for the Middle East if he was not re-elected, as he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida.
Netanyahu travelled to Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Florida resort, to meet Trump on Friday, who warmly greeted him and his wife Sara upon arrival, kissing her on both cheeks and then clasping hands with the long-serving prime minister.
The meeting capped a week in which and held talks with President Joe Biden and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
"We have incompetent people running our country," Trump said while sitting across from Netanyahu.
"If we win, it'll be very simple. It's all gonna work out, and very quickly," Trump said. "If we don't, you could end up with major wars in the Middle East and maybe a third world war."
Opinion polls put Harris and Trump in a close race for the White House, prompting world leaders like Netanyahu, traditionally more aligned with Trump's Republicans than Biden's Democrats, to strike a balance in dealings with the US.
Donald Trump says Kamala Harris' remarks 'disrespectful'
The tone was in notable contrast to on Thursday, in which the vice-president told him to seal a Gaza peace deal and insisted that she would not be "silent" on the suffering in the Palestinian enclave.
"What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time," Harris told reporters.
Trump on Friday described Harris as a "radical left person" and said he thought "her remarks were disrespectful" and "weren't very nice pertaining to Israel".
Before visiting Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Benjamin Netanyahu met with Kamala Harris in Washington. Source: Getty / Roberto Schmidt
Conflict escalated on 7 October when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel from Gaza, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's retaliatory attack in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people and caused a humanitarian crisis, with most of the coastal enclave levelled, people displaced from their homes, famine and a shortage of emergency relief.
'A very good relationship'
Trump dismissed any suggestion of tensions with Netanyahu. He said his relationship with the Israeli prime minister had always been warm, while Netanyahu said he hoped progress was being made in talks on a Gaza ceasefire.
"We have a very good relationship," he said, noting policy changes during his presidency including moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and .
Netanyahu said he hoped his US trip would lead to a quicker ceasefire deal.
"I hope so. But I think time will tell," he told reporters. He said he thought there had been movement in efforts to forge a ceasefire because of Israeli military pressure and said he would dispatch a team to talks in Rome.
Netanyahu had angered Trump when he congratulated Biden on his victory over Trump in the 2020 election. Trump falsely claims the election was stolen from him by voter fraud.
Trump more recently criticised Netanyahu for Israeli security failures that enabled Hamas to carry out the October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
After the meeting, Trump's campaign later released a statement on the meeting, saying he "pledged that when he returns to the White House, he will make every effort to bring peace to the Middle East and combat anti-Semitism from spreading throughout college campuses across the United States".
Netanyahu posted a photo online showing him holding a hat that said "TOTAL VICTORY" — something he has vowed to achieve against Hamas in Gaza — as he stood next to Trump.
