Trump Rages at Netanyahu in Expletive-Filled Call Over Lebanon

Trump lost his temper. During a phone call brokered in the context of his efforts to mediate a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah — talks he desperately needs to keep alive to protect the ongoing US-Iran nuclear negotiations — he unleashed a profanity-laced tirade at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He accused Netanyahu of ingratitude, ordered a halt to Israeli plans to strike Beirut, and warned that if Netanyahu pressed ahead, Washington would move to further isolate Israel on the international stage.

According to US media, Trump unloads on Netanyahu in expletive-filled phone call: accused him of ingratitude, and threatened to further isolate Israel on the international stage.

According to Axios, reporting on the afternoon of June 1 local time, two US officials and one source who knew about the call revealed what Trump told Netanyahu directly: "You're fucking crazy. You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this." Trump's reference to saving Netanyahu from prison alluded to the support he extended during the Israeli PM's ongoing corruption trial.

A second source familiar with the call added that Trump was "pissed". At one point, he shouted at Netanyahu: "What the fuck are you doing?"

An official described the call as the worst between Trump and Netanyahu since Trump returned to the White House.

One US official noted that Trump understood Hezbollah had been firing at Israel and that Israel had the right to defend itself. But in recent days, he felt Netanyahu had pushed the situation far beyond what was necessary. Beyond the threat to Beirut, Israel had also been expanding its ground operations in southern Lebanon.

Another US official said Trump was deeply concerned about the number of civilians Israel had killed in Lebanon. He objected to Israel demolishing entire buildings just to eliminate a single Hezbollah commander.

Trump and Netanyahu have had several tense calls in the past while still maintaining close coordination on Iran and other issues. But this one was different. One official described it as the worst call between the two since Trump returned to the White House. The fury stems from a clear strategic fear: Netanyahu's escalation in Lebanon risks derailing the US-Iran negotiations entirely. Iran had previously warned it would withdraw from talks with the United States if Israel continued its military operations in Lebanon.

After the call, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, stating that the Iran negotiations were continuing "at a rapid pace", that Israel would not send forces into Beirut, and that Hezbollah had agreed to a ceasefire.

Netanyahu told a different story. In a statement issued after the call, he said he had told Trump that if Hezbollah did not stop attacking Israel, Israel would strike targets in Beirut. He added that military operations in southern Lebanon would continue, and emphasized: "This position of ours remain unchanged." Yet another US official contradicted that account entirely, claiming Trump had in fact "steamrolled" Netanyahu during the call. That official said: "Bibi (Netanyahu) said, 'OK, OK, just make sure everything is taken care of.'"

Earlier, Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz had issued a joint statement announcing that, given Hezbollah's "repeated and ongoing violations of the ceasefire," they had ordered the Israeli military to carry out airstrikes on the Dahiyeh district of Beirut. That announcement triggered a sharp reaction from Iran.

Israel escalates its bombardment of Lebanon.

Analysts have noted that the memorandum of understanding currently being negotiated between the US and Iran reportedly contains provisions for ending the conflict in Lebanon — a key source of the recurring friction between Trump and Netanyahu. The White House has not yet confirmed those claims.

The diplomatic fallout is widening fast. A source close to the negotiating team revealed that, in response to Israel's continued military operations in Lebanon and Gaza, the Iranian negotiating team has suspended its dialogue and text exchanges with the United States through intermediaries. Iran is now considering a full blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

In Sidon, a port city in southern Lebanon, rescue workers carry an injured person out of a damaged apartment building struck by an Israeli airstrike.

On the afternoon of June 1 local time, the United Nations Security Council convened an emergency meeting on the Lebanon-Israel situation. Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations Fu Cong spoke at the session, stating that the situation had deteriorated sharply. Israel has expanded its military operations in Lebanon and continuously enlarged its so-called "security zone" — crossing the Litani River and occupying Beaufort Castle. This marks Israel's deepest military incursion into Lebanon in over two decades.

The Lebanon-Israel ceasefire has become a "ceasefire in name only." The international community must take urgent action before the situation slides into an even more dangerous abyss. He called on all parties to: immediately achieve a ceasefire and cessation of hostilities, and ease tensions; strengthen support for Lebanon to stabilize its domestic situation; and ensure that UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) can fulfill its mandate and safeguard regional stability.

Deep Throat

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The Pentagon has a secret it has kept for months. Politico, citing informed sources, reported on October 22 that the US defense establishment has been quietly building an "elite new technology agency" to secretly disrupt and sabotage foreign technology programs seen as a threat to American military superiority.

A Secret Agency Surfaces

Yet since the agency was set up in April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and senior Pentagon officials have never mentioned it in public, the sources said. The Washington Post had earlier reported, also citing leaks, that the US Department of Defense plans to build a "more powerful" deep-cover spy program to wage "economic warfare" against America's competitors.

What is the mission? A former US intelligence official who once worked closely with the secret agency said its overall goal is to buy time and keep adversaries from developing key technologies.

The Shadowy TSO

Politico broke the story under a blunt headline: "The Pentagon is quietly building an elite new tech sabotage agency." At the center of it sits a technology support office, known internally as TSO, that barely exists on paper. Scour the Pentagon's website and you will find almost nothing. The office surfaces only in a handful of previously undisclosed Defense Department records and memos, and the specifics are highly classified.

Politico: Pentagon quietly builds secret tech-sabotage agency targeting at America’s competitors.

Yet even the insiders cannot agree on what TSO is. Politico interviewed 12 current and former US national security officials, and their grasp of the office varied widely.

Some of these anonymous sources helped create TSO or worked closely alongside it. Others sat in on briefings or discussed the matter with current Pentagon officials. A third group knows the Defense Department intelligence programs that have since been folded into TSO.

The Men Behind It

Every secret shop needs its architects. This one has two: US Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, who drove the agency's creation, and his senior adviser Tom Rakusan, a former senior CIA official who once directed spy operations and was deeply involved in building TSO.

Deputy Defense Secretary Feinberg pushed TSO; adviser Rakusan deeply involved.　

The pair built the agency by merging two classified US Department of Defense intelligence programs. Since 2023, those programs had been running similar covert technology sabotage on a smaller scale.

Standing up a dedicated agency to expand those efforts sends a clear signal: the Pentagon means to escalate a series of aggressive covert activities overseas. That could include cyberattacks, supply chain disruptions, and disinformation operations.

Sabotage by Design

Sources say America's adversaries are getting creative, exploiting artificial intelligence and advanced commercial tech, like drones, in ways that could eat away at the US military edge.

The TSO has no legal authority to run covert operations itself. But it works hand in glove with senior US military and intelligence officials, crafting strategies and building cutting-edge tools to keep critical defense technologies out of adversaries' hands.

TSO signals aggressive covert ops: cyber, sabotage, disinformation.

Its ranks are filled with engineers, special operations personnel and intelligence officers. Their work runs the gamut, from custom-built hacking tools to deception schemes that trick adversaries into installing potentially flawed components on key weapons platforms.

Hegseth, Pentagon officials never mentioned agency publicly.

Blueprint From a White Paper

The blueprint took shape in early 2025. Staff at the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security (I&S), the outfit that oversees the Defense Department's intelligence programs, began drafting a white paper on how to expand the Pentagon's two existing classified technology disruption programs, according to three former intelligence officials.

The white paper was finished that fall. It weighed folding both programs into US Cyber Command, the Pentagon's digital warfare arm. In the end, it recommended something bolder: merging the two efforts into a new agency with its own budget and procurement authority.

That shift would hand the new agency far more muscle. It could pull cutting-edge technology out of the private sector faster. It could also think more strategically about which foreign defense technologies pose the greatest threat to US military organizations.

Spies Posing as Businessmen

In a telling coincidence, The Washington Post reported the same Wednesday (the 21st) that the Pentagon is seeking to set up a "deep-cover spying program" aimed at US competitors. The program would form part of a broader economic strategy.

Washington Post: Pentagon seeks deep-cover spy program.

The Post cited six people who know about the new plan, that US intelligence personnel known as "non-official cover" (NOC) operatives would pose as businesspeople or other private-sector staff, without disclosing their ties to the government.

The project is overseen by a former senior CIA official who now serves as a senior adviser to US Deputy Secretary of Defense Feinberg. That lines up closely with what Politico reported.

The risks are unusually high. Operating under non-official cover means these personnel cannot work at US embassies or other US government agencies, and if detained, they get no diplomatic immunity.

The program could also raise questions about legal authority and potential overlap with CIA intelligence operations, the report said.

The Pentagon pushed back. A deputy press secretary flatly rejected the reports, saying the story "appears to be built on information that is simply not true".