Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ignores Trump's push to attack Biden during historic Sudan peace announcement
‘Do you think Sleepy Joe could have made this deal, Bibi?’
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Your support makes all the difference.Benjamin Netanyahu snubbed Donald Trump's attempts to gang up on Joe Biden during the announcement of a peace deal to normalise relations between Israel and Sudan.
The Israeli prime minister and leaders of Sudan joined the Oval Office summit by phone as Mr Trump egged the conversation toward his Democratic opponent.
"Do you think Sleepy Joe could have made this deal Bibi? Sleepy Joe, do you think he would have made this deal? Somehow I don't think so," Mr Trump said.
Doing his best to remain diplomatic, Mr Netanyahu ignored the prompt and ended the conversational thread by turning it back onto flattery of Mr Trump.
"Well Mr President, one thing I can tell you is we appreciate the help for peace from anyone in America and we appreciate what you've done enormously," Mr Netanyahu said.
"This will be registered in the books, the history books, history registers who did what. I think it does."
Mr Trump said at least five additional countries planned on signing a peace deal with Israel following Sudan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
During the call with Mr Netanyahu and the prime minister of Sudan, Abdalla Hamdok, to outline the latest treaty, Mr Trump said Saudi Arabia would be among "at least" five more Middle East countries to follow.
"We have at least five that want to come in and we'll have many more than that very soon," Mr Trump told reporters in the White House.
"We expect Saudi Arabia will be one of those countries," Mr Trump added, praising the "highly respected" rulers King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Mr Trump said a signing ceremony, likely including Saudi Arabia, would be held within weeks.
While Mr Trump said “really good progress” was being made with Armenia and Azerbaijan, he would not confirm if he had already spoken to their leaders.
"We're talking about it, we're working with Armenia, we have a very good relationship with Armenia" Mr Trump said.
The president went as far to suggest Iran would join and be involved in some way, if not in an official deal at least with improved relations.
Mr Netanyahu said they were rapidly expanding the "circle of peace".
“It is a new world,” he said over the phone. “We are cooperating with everyone. Building a better future for all of us.”
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