Trump gets into shouting match with Sen. Bill Cassidy over Iran war in closed-door meeting

Josh Christenson, Ryan King and Ally Goelz / NEW YORK POST

WASHINGTON — President Trump and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) got into a shouting match during a lunch meeting Wednesday over the US war with Iran, according to sources and lawmakers who were in attendance.

GOP senators described Trump as being “mad as a murder hornet” and raising his voice at the Louisiana Republican for joining three other Republicans in a vote limiting his wartime authority.

Cassidy — who later quipped that the talks went “swimmingly” — called the president “my brother” several times during the heated exchange to lower tensions, Senate GOP sources said. The president spat back that Cassidy wasn’t his brother and told him to sit down, per CNN.

“[Trump] did not particularly care for my comments, raised his voice, I lost my temper,” Cassidy later recounted to reporters. “It’s the Irish in me.” 

“But again I matched his tone and his volume, and it went back and forth,” he further explained. “So I sat down and tried to de-escalate. I guess my point is, though, that the American people need to know more than we are being told. The Senate needs to know.” Read more, and see photos here.

Israel furious with Trump for being left out of the US-Iran peace talks: ‘It’s a huge mess’

Ronny Reyes and Caitlin Doornbos / New York Post

Many on Israel’s right are fuming at President Trump about the Jewish state’s exclusion from the US-Iran peace talks and the fate of the war against Hezbollah.

Shima Shine, an ex-Mossad official and INSS senior researcher, told The Post it was a mistake to keep Israel at arms-length from the negotiating table, especially when the deal hinges on its current fight with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

“What did America think about that? How did they think that they can — at the same time — talk with Iran about Lebanon and force Israel to stop, and then bring the Israelis and the Lebanese to negotiate two sides when they are not in any way part of the negotiations with Iran,” Shine said.

“I really think it’s a huge mess,” she added.

After details of the memorandum of understanding were published last week, the Israel Hayom newspaper — owned by Miriam Adelson, one of Trump’s biggest, pro-Israel backers — published a scathing opinion piece accusing him of betraying the Jewish state.