President Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call Sunday that Israel risks losing American backing if it reignites a full-scale conflict with Tehran, a blunt warning delivered as the administration pushes toward a deal it says is within reach.
Trump confirmed the exchange Monday in an interview with Israel's Channel 12, as reported by the New York Post.
"I told Bibi, 'you better be very careful what you do, because you could be left alone against Iran very soon.'"
The call came after Iran launched missiles at Israel on Sunday, the latest volley in a conflict that began February 28 and has now passed the 100-day mark. Trump phoned Netanyahu after the strikes and asked him not to retaliate. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump pressed the Israeli prime minister to keep any response limited.
Netanyahu ultimately chose restraint, at least on the Iran front. His office issued a statement saying Israel would hold fire against Tehran after Iran publicly announced it would stop striking Israel. But Netanyahu did not promise to end strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, and the Israeli Defense Forces warned residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate in anticipation of additional operations.
Channel 12 reported that Iran contacted Washington the morning after the Sunday missile exchange to propose a cease-fire. Trump said Tehran offered to stop hostilities with Israel if he could convince Netanyahu to halt further attacks. An administration official told the Post that the White House did not believe Iran intended to return to full-scale war with its strikes on Israel.
A source with knowledge of Netanyahu's thinking described the Sunday call as "more of a request than a demand." Netanyahu reportedly emphasized that Israel had a right to respond and argued that standing down would weaken deterrence against Tehran. For now, though, he has refrained from targeting Beirut again, strikes on the Lebanese capital's Dahiya district over the weekend were, in Iran's view, the provocation that triggered Sunday's missile launches.
The dynamic here is worth examining closely. Trump has signaled a willingness to engage directly with Iran's leadership, and his administration has invested months of diplomatic capital in brokering some form of agreement. The president said he was close to a deal with Iran and would not let Israel ruin it by returning to war.
That is a remarkable sentence to parse. It reflects a president who sees a strategic opening and is willing to apply real pressure on an ally to keep it alive.
Vice President JD Vance went on Fox News' "The Five" Monday and made the administration's case with a clear-eyed qualifier. Iran, he said, is "putting some real things on the table." But Vance acknowledged he does not "assume that everybody involved is acting in good faith."
"We're going to take the attitude of accomplish the president's mission, but verify over the long term that the Iranians are keeping their end of the bargain."
Vance added that if the deal comes together, "it's going to be a home run for the American people." He also offered a practical read on Tehran's motivations: "Let's be honest, the Iranians don't want this war to continue. It's not in their best interests."
That assessment lines up with what Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian posted to X on Monday, stating that discussions with Washington are continuing. His framing was characteristically dual-track.
"Diplomacy and defense are the two wings of national power; we have neither abandoned the field nor the negotiating table."
Pezeshkian added: "Our priority is national security and the peace of our people. We will defend the rights of the nation with authority and will not retreat in the face of any threat." This is the kind of language regimes produce when they want to negotiate but cannot afford to look like they are capitulating. Whether Tehran means it is the central question.
Iranian sources told the Post that Tehran seeks the unfreezing of billions of dollars before it will enter nuclear negotiations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Congress last week that sanctions relief would only be offered if Iran made progress on its nuclear file. Rubio also said the ongoing U.S. blockade on Iranian ports would be lifted only if Tehran reopens the Strait of Hormuz.
The administration has previously claimed progress on Iran's uranium commitments while cautioning that Tehran could reverse course. That caution is well-founded. Trump has repeatedly claimed for months that a deal could be close, and the gap between optimistic presidential rhetoric and the hard facts on the ground remains wide.
On Monday, Iran claimed it had opened the Strait of Hormuz, but only for vessels willing to pay a "fee" to transit. The Persian Gulf Strait Authority posted to X that it was "striving to provide safe passage for commercial vessels in cooperation with the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran." The Trump administration has consistently called for free passage through the strait and has objected to Iran's desire to toll it. Charging commercial ships for the right to use an international waterway is not "opening" anything. It is a shakedown dressed in diplomatic language.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose country is mediating U.S.-Iran talks, posted to X on Monday that "the final objective is just about to be achieved." He urged all sides to exercise restraint.
"As we work earnestly and painstakingly, together with our brothers and partners, to find a peaceful diplomatic solution to the conflict, and especially when the final objective is just about to be achieved, we sincerely urge all sides to exercise restraint and give peace a little more chance."
That is hopeful language from a mediator. Whether it reflects reality or aspiration is another matter entirely.
This is not the first time Trump has confronted Netanyahu directly over military operations. Earlier this month, a heated phone call between the two leaders centered on Israeli strikes in Lebanon, and reporting indicated Trump pushed back hard on the scope of those operations.
The pattern is becoming clear. Trump views the broader Iran deal as a first-order priority and is willing to lean on Jerusalem when Israeli actions threaten to derail it. Netanyahu, for his part, treats each call as a negotiation, weighing Trump's requests against his own security imperatives and domestic political pressures.
Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, struck a far less diplomatic tone than Pezeshkian. Referencing those killed in Israel's weekend strikes on Beirut, Zolghadr wrote: "If the evil Zionist-American coalition makes another mistake, the region will become hell for it!" That kind of rhetoric, from a senior security official, not a backbencher, is a reminder that Iran's internal politics are no more monolithic than Israel's.
The administration's approach, as Vance framed it, is trust-but-verify. That is the right instinct. Iran has spent decades running out the clock on nuclear talks while advancing its program, funding proxies, and destabilizing the region. Any deal that does not account for that history is not a deal worth having.
But Trump is also right that the status quo, an open-ended, low-grade war that could escalate into a regional catastrophe at any moment, serves no one's interests, least of all America's. Pressing Netanyahu to hold fire is not abandoning Israel. It is managing a volatile situation so that a broader strategic objective has room to materialize.
The open questions are substantial. What exact terms did Iran propose in the cease-fire? What specific sanctions does Tehran want lifted, and at what dollar figure? What does "progress on the nuclear file" mean in practice, as Rubio described it to Congress? And will Netanyahu's restraint hold if Hezbollah escalates from southern Lebanon?
None of those questions have public answers yet. What is clear is that the Trump administration is running a high-stakes diplomatic play on multiple fronts simultaneously, pressuring an ally, engaging an adversary, and trying to keep a 100-day-old conflict from becoming something far worse.
The hardest deals are the ones where you have to tell your friends what they do not want to hear. That is exactly what Trump did on Sunday.