U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday declared that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested when he comes to the United States, coming after New York City’s mayor said he would investigate whether the city could arrest the Israeli leader when he is likely to visit in September.
“Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “He is fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Trump added that “the only ones that should be arrested are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented SPIRAL OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION, something that should have been dealt with years ago, by previous Presidents!”
While Trump did not mention any specific claims in the post, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani told The New York Times in a recent interview that his office is looking into whether the city can arrest Netanyahu when he visits for the U.N. General Assembly, which runs in September.
“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani said. “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court. And what you will find is that is an opinion that is held by many purely because of what his actions have wrought over these last many years.”
The mayor was referring to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2024 having issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the former Israeli minister of defense, over what the court alleged were war crimes and crimes against humanity. Both Netanyahu and Gallant have denied the claims, with Netanyahu saying the Hague-based court was hijacked by a “rogue prosecutor” who issued the warrants.
When he was asked whether he believed any law allowed him to carry out the arrest, Mamdani replied: “That’s an active conversation with our legal department. However, what we’ve seen at the national level is a desire sometimes to write your own laws, to go outside of the bounds of legality. That’s not something we have an interest in.”
The ICC case relates to Israel’s war in Gaza following a Hamas terrorist attack that killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Netanyahu’s office on Sunday criticized the ICC as well as Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist and Democrat.
“The ICC is a kangaroo court that has no jurisdiction over Americans or Israelis,” the office said in a statement posted to X. “Its bogus arrest warrant against Prime Minister Netanyahu was issued by a disgraced former ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan, a few days before allegations of sexual misconduct against him became public.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks about the fiscal year 2027 budget in New York City on May 12, 2026. Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
It added that Mamdani “should focus on fixing the damage his policies have caused New York” rather than supporting Khan.
“Like Karim Khan, Mamdani appears interested in diverting public attention from his follies and attacking the leader of the Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East,” the statement said.
The office also defended Israel’s tactics in the conflict in Gaza, which entered a ceasefire period in October 2025, saying Israel took steps to reduce harm to civilians when targeting Hamas.
