CHICAGO, Illinois — Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) demanded Wednesday that PBS NewsHour‘s Judy Woodruff retract her claim on Tuesday that former President Donald Trump was telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reject a hostage deal.
Waltz, speaking at a press briefing at Trump Tower, flatly denied Woodruff’s claim, and said that the veteran anchor needs to “come with the goods” to back up her reporting, or else retract her report.
As the Jerusalem Post reported, Woodruff made the claim while citing “reporting” on the issue, without specifics:
The Prime Minister’s Office categorically rejected a recent PBS report that claimed Trump may have urged Netanyahu to reject the recent US-advanced hostage deal proposal, the office said on Wednesday.
“The reporting is that former President Trump is on the phone with the Prime Minister of Israel, urging him not to cut a deal right now, because it’s believed it would help the Harris campaign,” said PBS NewsHour host Judy Woodruff.
Later, at The Jerusalem Post‘s request for a response, the PMO called the report a “complete lie.”
Trump rejected similar claims last week, saying that the last time he had spoken to Netanyahu was during the latter’s visit to Mar-a-Lago in late July, during which Trump told Netanyahu to finish the war in Gaza quickly, with victory.
Axios.com originally reported a Trump-Netanyahu phone call last week, citing two U.S. sources that it did not name. Both Trump and Netanyahu denied that such a call took place, leading Axios to update its story with an editor’s note.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
