'President Putin told me he is attacked, it's not good': Trump

US President Donald Trump, ahead of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday (Dec 29) in Florida, said that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, told him that he had been attacked. “I don’t like it. It’s not good,” Trump said. The American president conceded it was “possible” the allegation was false, and such an attack had not occurred. He added, “But President Putin told me this morning it did.”

“I just heard about it, actually, but I don’t know about it. That would be too bad. That would not be good,” he told reporters. Describing his call with the Russian president, Trump said, “It was a very productive talk. I mean, we have a few very thorny issues, as you can imagine.

“We have a couple of issues that we’re going to get resolved, hopefully, and if we get them resolved, you can have peace," he added.

Trump-Netanyahu meeting

Trump met the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida on Monday (Dec 29). The American president said ahead of the meeting that the Palestinian militant group Hamas must disarm. "Every hostage has been released was released because of us. And none, thanks to the Biden administration. Only one is left, and we are doing our best to get his body back," Trump said.

The American president, ahead of the meeting, suggested that he would try to get the second phase of the Gaza peace plan started “as quickly as we can.” “Very quickly, as quickly as we can, but there has to be a disarmament, we have to disarm with Hamas,” the president told CNN’s Kevin Liptak outside of Mar-a-Lago.

Trump also said that without Netanyahu, Israel would not have existed at present. “He is a very strong man, Israel won't have existed today without him,” Trump said.

Threat to Iran

Trump also threatened Iran that if the country were trying to rebuild the nuclear missile programme, he would "knock them down". “I hear that Iran is trying to build up again, and if they are, we’re going to have to knock them down,” Trump said ahead of a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also added, “We’ll knock them down. We’ll knock the hell out of them.”

Trump added that he would support an attack on Iran “immediately” if it attempts to redevelop its nuclear capability, advising the country instead to seek a “deal” with the US. “That’s smarter ... They could have made a deal the last time before we went through, you know, a big attack on them,” he said.