U.S. President Donald Trump has made a habit of threatening and bullying both adversaries and allies with dire consequences if they don’t do what he wants. Call it his definition of a true bully pulpit. Sometimes it has worked: for example, pushing Netanyahu to accept a 20-point Gaza peace plan in October 2025 after threatening to walk away from the Israeli leader. Sometimes it doesn’t work: for example, in pushing the Europeans on Greenland or pressuring Iran to accept U.S. terms for a deal. And then, of course, there’s last week’s threat to the Omanis to “blow them up” if the country’s leaders crossed him on the Strait of Hormuz.

Just this past week, Trump took to the bully pulpit again with Israel. Indeed, Trump said something about an Israeli leader that no U.S. president has ever said publicly: Netanyahu “will do whatever I want him to do” on Iran.

U.S. President Donald Trump has made a habit of threatening and bullying both adversaries and allies with dire consequences if they don’t do what he wants. Call it his definition of a true bully pulpit. Sometimes it has worked: for example, pushing Netanyahu to accept a 20-point Gaza peace plan in October 2025 after threatening to walk away from the Israeli leader. Sometimes it doesn’t work: for example, in pushing the Europeans on Greenland or pressuring Iran to accept U.S. terms for a deal. And then, of course, there’s last week’s threat to the Omanis to “blow them up” if the country’s leaders crossed him on the Strait of Hormuz.

Just this past week, Trump took to the bully pulpit again with Israel. Indeed, Trump said something about an Israeli leader that no U.S. president has ever said publicly: Netanyahu “will do whatever I want him to do” on Iran.

Trump’s leverage over Netanyahu appears to be quite real, especially as Netanyahu needs Trump’s support to cling to power. Trump is more popular in Israel than Netanyahu, and should he be seen as withdrawing support for Netanyahu, it could cost the prime minister the election in October. Recall former President George H.W. Bush’s decision in 1991 to deny then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir housing loan guarantees for the absorption of Russian Jewish immigrants when Shamir refused to rule out their resettlement in the occupied territories. This hurt Shamir politically and contributed to his election defeat in 1992 to Yitzhak Rabin, who received the loan guarantees within months.

The load of goodies that Trump delivered to Netanyahu during his first term—recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and continued military support—created the image that Netanyahu was an indispensable and unique manager of a strong U.S.-Israeli bond.

Today, however, given Netanyahu’s vulnerabilities, especially his inability to crush Hezbollah, Hamas, and now Iran, he needs Trump as an active campaigner. Trump can’t elect Netanyahu, but without his support and focus on the prime minister as indispensable to a strong U.S.-Israeli relationship, Netanyahu’s vulnerabilities increase exponentially.

The test of Trump’s leverage may soon be on display when the U.S.-Iran negotiations move toward an endgame on a memorandum of understanding. Based on what we know, the approach that the administration is adopting will be seen by Netanyahu and his domestic opponents as a lose-lose.

The Iranian regime will remain in place, harder-line than its predecessor, and no conditions for regime change will have been laid. The regime is more cohesive, and the deterrence card has been undermined by the fact that Iran weathered a major attack by the United States and now has a new weapon to be employed at will in the future—namely, the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz and expose the vulnerability of the Persian Gulf states. Equally, there is no evidence at this point that the United States can impose serious restrictions on Iran’s damaged nuclear infrastructure.

Unfortunately for Netanyahu, while he may have had a key influence on how, why, and when the war began, it’s highly unlikely that he’ll have much to say as to how and when it ends. If the memorandum of understanding plays out as we might expect, the cessation of hostilities will allow a period of negotiations to deal with all the issues, and the prospect of renewed U.S.-Israeli attacks will end.

Once the strait reopens, even gradually, and the U.S. blockade is removed, the blame game will begin. Netanyahu will stew, while unnamed political associates will argue that the United States failed to achieve regime change due to a lack of will. Trump won’t allow Netanyahu to muck up an agreement that ends the war, and he will insulate himself from domestic U.S. criticism by blaming Israel for overreach, especially in Lebanon. Trump will brook no pushback from Netanyahu or any further Israeli military actions that threaten to draw in the Americans. Remember, Trump big-footed Netanyahu after Israel bombed Hamas’s external leadership in Doha, and he will not be pushed again by Netanyahu into renewing the war. The Israeli leader’s only real hope in this scenario is that Iran overplays its hand and the process breaks down.

Lebanon is also likely to end badly for Netanyahu. Hezbollah has not complied with the cease-fire, is not disarming, and is recovering faster and with more capacity than Israel imagined. The Lebanese government is showing more backbone, especially its willingness to meet directly with Israel under Washington’s auspices, but it lacks the will and capacity to forcibly disarm Hezbollah. Israel is exacerbating the situation by occupying parts of the south, ordering more villages to evacuate, and killing Lebanese civilians in its efforts to strike Hezbollah. While offensive military action is popular in Israel, especially among the northern border communities, it’s placed the Lebanese government in a tight spot.

The main event is how Lebanon might figure in the U.S.-Iranian dance. Until now, the Trump administration had given Israel leeway to continue its campaign in Lebanon. But today, in response to Iran’s decision to suspend negotiations with the United States unless Israel agreed to accept a ceasefire, Trump called Netanyahu and pressed him to halt Israeli strikes in the Beirut area. It’s an indication of what may come if Iran and the United States reach a deal. Indeed, should the memorandum of understanding come to fruition and should Iran make it contingent on a real cease-fire in Lebanon, Trump will not hesitate to force Netanyahu to stand down. Netanyahu will have no choice but to comply.

Trump recently used his bully pulpit to link the Iran deal with the Gulf states joining the Abraham Accords. No one can figure this out, as this linkage is untethered to reality in the Gulf. Trump might assess that this demand will offer protection from domestic critics if he needs to pressure Israel on Iran and Lebanon.

But there is no chance that Gulf states will tether themselves to an Israeli government that is annexing the West Bank, occupying parts of Lebanon, and appearing to gear up for another major military operation in Gaza. Other than the United Arab Emirates, which appears to be doubling down on its relationship with Israel, the last thing that the others need, especially the Saudis, is a high-profile relationship with the Netanyahu government.

The bottom line, then, is that Trump’s bullying, threats, and leverage have yielded mixed results. He has not yet produced an Iran deal, he does not have an answer to the future of the highly enriched uranium buried under Iranian rubble, he has given Iran the gift of leverage in the Strait of Hormuz, and his Board of Peace in Gaza has failed thus far to get Hamas to disarm. And pressure is mounting daily in the West Bank, though surprisingly, this does not seem to worry Trump or his peace negotiators.

Are there any brakes on Trump’s likely pressure on Israel if an Iran deal materializes? Pressuring Israel might upset Republican supporters of the country, especially as midterms approach. But Trump is first and foremost about Trump, going so far as to say that he doesn’t care about the midterms. Trump’s only concern will be the blowback from those who say that he may have inflicted damage on Iran, but that he lost the war. As the left blasts him for starting the war and parts of the right charge that he lost it, Trump will look to blame others. Netanyahu may well be at the top of his list.