Clip: Why Democrats are starting to publicly criticize Netanyahu

Jeffrey Goldberg: All of us around this table have covered the relationship since Benjamin Netanyahu has been prime minister of Israel longer than anybody in Israeli history. We've seen him with different presidents at different times.

I'll start by making this observation. It's very hard for an Israeli prime minister to anger Joe Biden, who loves Israel, and yet it seems as if we're there that somehow Netanyahu and Biden are so crossways right now, that the relationship is almost ruptured.

Put this in context, and I'll ask other people to jump in as well. Put this in historic context. We all remember the Obama-Netanyahu relationship. Is this gotten worse?

Franklin Foer: Yes, of course it has. And if you flash back to the rupture during the Obama administration, Joe Biden was always the person who stepped in and tried to find a way to make it better. Biden's relationship with the state of Israel and his telling goes back to his father. And he's been a million times.

When the war started, he wrapped his arms around Israel. When Benjamin Netanyahu was missing on the scene, he stepped in. It was essentially prime minister of Israel, so much so that when he went to visit, I think, 10 or 11 days after October 7th, he sat in the Israeli war cabinet, asking them the questions that a prime minister should be asking about strategic objectives.

And the questions that he’s asking of Benjamin Netanyahu are actually reasonable questions. What is your long-term plan? What is going to happen on the day after the war? If you go into Rafah, which, by the way, I don't think is imminent for many reasons, including the fact that Israel would need to call up and re-mobilize a good number of its troops in order to invade Rafah in a way, but these are questions that are reasonable to ask about what would happen to the million people who live in Rafah.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. So, Jon, we were just talking about Ukraine being a domestic political issue. Israel is the ultimate example, often, of a foreign country becoming a domestic, political hot potato. Is Israel becoming a partisan issue in a way that has never been before?

Jonathan Karl: I mean, look, you've just had the Republican presumptive nominee say that if you vote Democratic and you're Jewish, it means you hate your religion. I mean, he's doing everything in his power to make it a partisan issue, and it's becoming a partisan issue.

You look at the response when Chuck Schumer came on the Senate floor and effectively called for new elections in Israel, effectively called for a regime change in Israel, new elections in Israel. And the way it was denounced by Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader and Republicans across the board, I mean, it is becoming more of a partisan issue.

And let's face it, you have a growing group within the Democratic Party that is emphatically not pro-Israel. And so this is definitely contributing to it.

Jeffrey Goldberg: So, I want to -- you mentioned this extraordinary statement that Donald Trump made about American Jews. I want you to listen to that for a minute, and I want to get Frank's comment on it after we listen.

Donald Trump (R), Former U.S. President, 2024 Presidential Candidate: Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, Frank, I'm not going to ask you to speak on behalf of the Jews, and please don't ask me to speak on the behalf of the Jews, but that's a fairly extraordinary statement. It's not extraordinary in the context of Trump's discourse, but it's an extraordinary thing to put out there.

I mean, what is the reaction, I mean, to the extent that you've gauged it among American Jews, the majority of whom traditionally vote Democratic, the vast majority of them?

Franklin Foer: First, it should be said that there is a long tradition of leaders, especially authoritarian-minded leaders, of dividing Jews into good Jews who are loyal to state and bad Jews are not loyal to the state. And, historically, when those distinctions get made, the Jews were deemed to be the not good Jews end up being targeted in some sort of way.

And it's somewhat scary, I think, for American Jewry, because of the way in which Trump tends to talk about the people he demonizes, and it comes in this larger context where we're seeing an incredible surge of anti-Semitism, not just from the right, but also from the left. And to hear a potential president of the United States talk in a sort of way, even if he's talked in a way before, is very triggering.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Nikole, there -- I don't know the degree to which this is going to become a reality. Maybe you could enlighten us. But Speaker Johnson is thinking about bringing Netanyahu to the Hill. What would that look like?

You know, we remember years ago a number of Democrats sat out, boycotted when Netanyahu came and spoke the last time, mainly around the subject of Iran. I'm feeling like this is going to be a whole other level of carnival.

Nikole Killion: Yes. Well, you're already seeing a pretty significant divide, not only between Republicans and Democrats on this, but within the Democratic Party itself, where many Democrats have suggested they may boycott, others say they may go.

You know, we have leader Hakeem Jeffries, who tried to put some distance there, saying, look, Speaker Johnson hasn't even asked me about this. So, until he does, I am not going comment. I mean, we did also hear from Leader Schumer this week on the issue, saying, you know, despite his comments last week, that he would welcome the opportunity so long as it's done in a bipartisan fashion.

And we did see some Democrats boycott when President Herzog addressed a joint session of Congress about a year or so ago. But that being said, it is. It's starting to become a wedge issue, the political hot potato, and I think one that could potentially be inflamed if the prime minister does come to visit. But the speaker has made clear this is something that he would like to do. He would like to extend that invitation, so I think we'll have to see how it plays out.

Jonathan Karl: I don't think it's actually going to happen. It may -- I mean, Netanyahu did this exact same playbook with Obama when he came in 2015, and the issue there was the Iran nuclear program. He wanted to go over Obama's head effectively and make the case to Congress against the deal. I don't anticipate it playing out this time.

But it's remarkable that Netanyahu wants to effectively play to Trump because he's hit a wall with Biden. But, I mean, Trump hates Netanyahu. He's toyed with him. He resented the fact that Netanyahu came out and congratulated Biden just days after the 2020 election.

Jeffrey Goldberg: It was kind of a pro forma congratulations.

Jonathan Karl: It was, but he absolutely resented it.

And it wasn't just that. If you remember, Netanyahu visited Washington, came to the White House while he was campaigning for his own re-election, and Trump saw him as a showboat. And, you know, that's a terrible thing in Trump world.

Jeffrey Goldberg: When Trump thinks you're a showboat.

Jonathan Karl: Yes, yes. I mean, because he came in and he was using Trump's stage to make the case. He spoke longer than Trump. He's spoke more emphatically than Trump and he also blindsided the Trump administration with a new announcement on settlements.

So, it's risky strategy, but Netanyahu needs to stay in power to stay --

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. One thing they have in common, they're both under indictment in their own countries, Trump and Netanyahu.

Jonathan Karl: They both want to be in power to avoid potentially going to jail.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right, which, bottom line, might be what's going on here at the deepest level.

I want to get to the -- Frank, I'll come back to you in a second, but I want to get to something else that might be operating at the deepest level. Both men, Trump and Netanyahu, have autocratic tendencies. You've written about this. It's somewhat surprising that they don't get along better.

Anne Applebaum: I mean, they're very similar in some ways. I think some of the root of the discomfort with Netanyahu in the Democratic Party, and maybe even more broadly, there was a sense that we support Israel because it's a little democracy in a region where there aren't a lot of democracies. And we have something in common with them, that means we have a special bond, and so on. I think a lot of Democrats, I'm sure that's what Joe Biden thinks about Israel. He remembers its founding and the role that we played.

Jeffrey Goldberg: The older the Democrat, the more likely they are --

Anne Applebaum: The more likely they are to think that.

Netanyahu has systematically chipped away at that image, both by putting extremists into his government, by using kind of authoritarian propaganda to run election campaigns, most recently, over the last year, before the war, by passing or trying to pass a series of judicial reforms that would have politicized the judiciary in Israel, much very following a similar pattern that's been used elsewhere in Hungary and Turkey.

So, he lost the image of the Democrat, and he therefore won a lot of enmity in the Democratic Party and actually won a lot of admirers on the right, including in the anti-Semitic right. I mean, Viktor Orban, who made George Soros as a kind of Jewish billionaire into a hate figure in Hungarian politics, feels very close to Netanyahu. They seem very similar. They have similar ideas about how to undermine institutions. So, I mean, maybe Trump doesn't like him personally, but the Republican Party likes him a lot.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. That's right. Jon, let me ask you, in the couple of minutes that we have left, to talk about your extraordinary book. There's one story I need you to tell everyone, which is the Merkel story, which relates directly to this. Can you give us the 20 second version of that?

Jonathan Karl: Yes. This is a story that he told one very senior member of Congress told me this, that it happened twice with Trump. There was a lot of stories that Merkel had nothing but contempt for Trump. So, Trump told this member of Congress, you know, she actually -- she can't believe the size of the crowds I get. She says, in fact, there's been only one leader in history that's ever got crowds as big as mine.

And the leader is thinking, you know who she's talking about, right? You know the chancellor of Germany is talking.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Did he understand, based on your reporting?

Jonathan Karl: I mean, that is the great -- I think he understood.

Jeffrey Goldberg: You think he understood?

Jonathan Karl: I think he understood exactly.

Jeffrey Goldberg: You think he understood.

I mean, based on your own reporting, do you feel that we're talking about a true authoritarian?

Jonathan Karl: I mean look, he is campaigning right now on the idea that literally the president United States is above the law. He is talking about undermining the Constitution, suspending certain provisions of the Constitution if necessary.

I think it's not necessarily in the pursuit of any grander ideology or any policy proposal. It's in pursuit of his own elevation and is exalting himself, proving that he never lost. But I think he's got all of those authoritarian tendencies.

Jeffrey Goldberg: So, Nikole, I will give you the last word on this. I have been in a search for an understanding of Republican foreign policy. But is Republican foreign policy just whatever -- at this point, whatever Trump feels at a given moment, even though he isn’t even in office right now?

Nikole Killion: Well, certainly we've seen many take that America first isolationist approach, and we know that the former president continues to have a lot of sway over congressional Republicans. But at the end of the day, you know, they also have their own minds, too.

So, again, I think, as we move forward with some of these key issues, it continues to be something to watch. And these very issues that we're talking about that were once bipartisan, you know, is there the prospect for that to be the case again or will we see that further partisan divide, particularly as this election cycle goes on? So, to be continued.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. It seems like Ukraine will be the issue to watch on the funding issue, especially.