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Trump and the Prime Minister of Israel Deliver Remarks, Dec. 29, 2025

December 29, 2025 · The White House · 0:27:03

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered remarks at Mar-a-Lago on December 29, 2025, after what both described as a productive meeting and lunch. “We came to a lot of conclusions,” the President said. “There’s very little difference in what we’re looking at and where we want to be, where we want to go.” Netanyahu said Israel has “never had a friend even close” to President Trump in the White House, calling the partnership one that has “allowed us to do enormous things” in the Middle East by working together rather than opening daylight between the two countries.

Netanyahu then announced that Israel will award the Israel Prize to President Trump — breaking, as he put it, a convention of almost 80 years under which the prize has never been awarded to a non-Israeli. “President Trump has broken so many conventions… so we decided to break a convention too, or create a new one,” he said. The President thanked him, calling the award surprising and very much appreciated, and said of the region: “We have peace in the Middle East and we’re going to try and keep it that way.”

Why it matters

The remarks close the December 29 Israel visit paged in this collection — the working meeting in the greet/gaggle record, the conclusions announced here — and carry a first-of-its-kind honor: a head of government stating on camera that his country’s highest cultural prize will go to a sitting American president, the first non-Israeli recipient in its history as Netanyahu stated it.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: the Israel Prize award as announced by Prime Minister Netanyahu at these remarks is a dated item for the record, checkable against the award’s presentation. Noted for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump and the Prime Minister of Israel Deliver Remarks,” Mar-a-Lago, December 29, 2025 (official upload, embedded above). All characterizations as stated at the event.