‘Are you crazy?’: Rare clip shows frustrated PM at press conference dress rehearsal
In video accidentally leaked to news channel, a rather agitated and impatient Netanyahu barks directions at aides ahead of his Sunday night presser, which preceded his hernia op
A news channel on Monday aired what it said was a video clip accidentally transmitted to it of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu practicing for the press conference he held Sunday night.
Channel 13 said Netanyahu held the rehearsal shortly before the media was invited into the room, and that the footage appeared to have accidentally been transmitted to its feed.
In the video aired by the network, Netanyahu moves through the first lines of his opening remarks, stopping repeatedly to ask questions and give instructions to aides regarding the state of the room, the air conditioning, the sound system, word choices in his prepared text on the prompter and more.
At times, the premier, who attended a war cabinet meeting after the presser and then underwent surgery for a hernia, seems somewhat agitated and impatient as he reviews the best way to open his speech.
“Wow, what’s that distance, are you crazy?” he says as he walks in. It’s not clear what he’s referring to, though it may be the teleprompter. “Move closer, what is this?”
“Close the door, turn off the AC immediately,” he says.
“They’ll hear it, won’t they? They’ll hear it,” he asks people off-camera, possibly referring to members of the media waiting outside.
“How’s the picture?” he wonders at one point.
תיעוד נדיר: החזרה של ראש הממשלה נתניהו לקראת מסיבת העיתונאים אתמול שודרה בטעות pic.twitter.com/wejKxE45db
— יענקי כהן | Yanki Coen (@yankicoen) April 1, 2024
Starting his preparation, the premier reads, “Citizens of Israel, good evening,” before stopping and asking: “Why ‘good evening’? Well, never mind.” He then tries the line out in a few ways before appearing to be satisfied.
He goes on to praise the IDF’s weeks-long operation against terror operatives at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City — as he did when journalists were allowed in and he opened the press conference soon after — before stopping to ask the prompter operator why the word “exemplary” is not in the text. Apparently losing patience, he moves on, adlibbing that “the operation was exemplary.”
“This is not what a medical center looks like,” he then declares of Shifa, before repeating the line, but this time adopting a more derisive tone. “This is not what a medical center looks like. This is what a terrorist center looks like.”
The recording stops there.
