Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had no reason to expect a hostile reception on Fox News.
After all, he'd been warmly welcomed in the halls of Congress by Democrats and Republicans alike. The GOP is even more unwavering than their nominal opposition in their support of Israel, so the conservative media giant could be expected to offer glad-handing and softball questions.
That's not what the Israeli leader got when he sat down with Bret Baier on Sunday. The anchor repeatedly pushed back on Netanyahu's justifications for launching missile strikes on Iran. After several days of missile exchanges between Israel and Iran, Baier was critical of Netanyahu's assertion that his "preemptive strike" was necessary.
"We were facing an imminent threat, a dual existential threat, one, the threat of Iran rushing to weaponize their enriched uranium to make atomic bombs with a specific and declared intent to destroy us," Netanyahu said. "It was the 12th hour. We did act to save ourselves, but also, I think, to not only protect ourselves but protect the world from this incendiary regime. We can’t have the world’s most dangerous regime have the world's most dangerous weapons."
Baier didn't buy it, pointing out that U.S. intelligence has found no proof of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.
“Less than two months ago, the new director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified on Capitol Hill saying that everything had been suspended since 2003 and had not restarted, that the nuclear program had not been restarted by the Iranians," he said. "So, did something change from the end of March until this week? Was the U.S. Intel wrong?”
Netanyahu countered that Iran would "achieve a test device and possibly an initial device within months."
Elsewhere in the interview, Netanyahu claimed that two assassination attempts on President Donald Trump in 2024 were orchestrated by Iranians.
"These people who chant death to America, try to assassinate President Trump twice, killed 241 of your Marines in Beirut, killed and injured thousands of American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq," Netanyahu said, "do you want these people to have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to your cities?"
"You just said Iran tried to assassinate President Trump twice. Do you have intel that the assassination attempts on President Trump were directly from Iran?"
Watch the interview below:
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