Benjamin Netanyahu downplays Trump’s furious phone call: 'If you think this is a crisis...'

WASHINGTON, DC: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is brushing off reports of a blistering phone call with President Donald Trump.

CNBC anchor Sara Eisen didn’t tiptoe around it during Wednesday’s Squawk on the Street interview from Jerusalem, pressing Netanyahu directly on Trump allegedly calling him “f**king crazy” and claiming he would be in jail without his support.

Sara Eisen probes Netanyahu about Trump's phone call

Eisen asked Netanyahu, “So let’s talk about the call that you had with him this week, which is getting a lot of attention. The president confirmed that he said, ‘You’re effing crazy.’ How did you react to that? What really happened in that call?”

The Israeli PM, however, refused to get dragged into the blow-by-blow.

“Well, I’m not going to get into details of our conversations," he said. "We’ve had thousands, well, a lot, a lot of them. And if you think this is a crisis, you should be in some other conversations.”

The controversy traces back to a report alleging Trump unloaded on Netanyahu during a Monday call. “You’re f**king crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your *ss. Everyone hates you now. Everyone hates Israel because of this,” the POTUS reportedly fumed, before snapping, “What the f**k are you doing?”

Trump later confirmed part of the story in an interview on the “Pod Force One” podcast.

“I did,” Trump said when asked about calling Netanyahu “effing crazy,” according to Axios reporting. “I wouldn't say angry. I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon, you know.” 

'Best of families' diplomacy

Netanyahu, meanwhile, appeared to suggest that there was nothing to see here.

“We’ve always found a way," he told Eisen. "We have so many agreements. We agree on the main things. We want to get Iran, the nuclear program in Iran, finished. We wanted to make sure that Iran doesn’t pose a threat to Israel, to the Middle East, to America. That it doesn’t develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them not only to Israel and to every capital in but to every city in the United States.”

He also pointed to joint efforts like the Abraham Accords.

“That’s our common goal. That’s what we set out to do, and to expand the circle of peace as the President and I did in the Abraham Accords together. So we have common goals. Sometimes we have, as in the best of families, you have these tactical disagreements. We always find a way to work them out. And we do so as great friends. We can disagree in the morning, and by the afternoon we have a common action,” Netanyahu said. 

Eisen followed up, "So I was going to say, has your relationship at all shifted with him?"

Netanyahu explained, "This has been a great relationship because he’s been the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House. And he respects me, I respect him. We always find a way to work out our differences."

Eisen then asked, "Did he say that you’d be in jail if not for me?" 

The Israeli leader said, "Uh, look, I’m not going to get into the details, but he’s, uh, he’s been very vocal about the absurdity of this fake trial that I’m going through."