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WATCH: Trump Says Attack on Israel ‘Wouldn’t Have Happened if They Had a Different President’

"Terrible thing, it’s a shame," Trump said. "We’ve got to get it working over there. It should’ve never happened."

Published: October 18, 2023
  |   By Cassandra MacDonald

Former President Donald Trump has once again appeared to criticize Israeli leadership, saying that the attack “wouldn’t have happened if they had a different president.”

While Israel’s president is Isaac Herzog, it is likely that Trump was referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — whom he has been critical of over the last week — though some have speculated that he meant if there was a different US president.

Speaking to reporters in New York, where he is standing trial in his civil business fraud case, Trump was asked about the blast at a hospital in Gaza.

“Terrible thing, it’s a shame,” Trump said. “We’ve got to get it working over there. It should’ve never happened. The attack on Israel should’ve never happened, and it wouldn’t have happened if they had a different president. I can tell you that.”

In an interview with Brian Kilmeade last week, Trump said Netanyahu “was not prepared. He was not prepared and Israel was not prepared. And under Trump, they wouldn’t have had to be prepared.”

Trump continued, “Who would’ve thought their intelligence wouldn’t have been able to pick this up? Thousands of people were involved. Thousands of people knew about it and they let this slip by. That was not a good thing for him or for anybody.”

Speaking at a rally in Florida last Wednesday, Trump blasted Netanyahu for backing out of helping the U.S. assassinate Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.

“I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down,” Trump said. “That was a very terrible thing. I will say that. And so, when I see sometimes the intelligence– you talk about the intelligence or you talk about some of the things that went wrong over the last week, they’ve gotta straighten it out because they’re fighting – potentially – a very big force, potentially Iran. And when they have people saying the wrong things, everything they say is being digested by these people because they’re vicious and they’re smart, and boy are they vicious ’cause nobody’s ever seen the kind of sight that we’ve seen. Nobody’s ever seen it. But they cannot play games.”

The Republican frontrunner for the 2024 presidential nomination continued, “So, we were disappointed by that. Very disappointed, but we did the job ourself, but it was absolute precision, magnificent, beautiful job. And then Bibi tried to take credit for it. That didn’t make me feel too good, but that’s all right. So, they gotta strengthen themselves up.”

Editor’s Note: This article was updated to include that there has been some speculation that he may have been referring to himself and the US presidency.

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