Trump won’t punish Herzog if he doesn’t pardon Netanyahu, predicts US envoy Huckabee

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee says he doesn’t expect US President Donald Trump to punish President Isaac Herzog if Herzog declines to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his corruption trial.

“He has every right to take his time in making the decision,” Huckabee tells Ynet, adding that Herzog “is an honorable and good man.”

Asked about a potential US strike on Iran, Huckabee says Tehran should “look at the signs.”

“They’re either going to come to terms and act like civilized people, or the president will make a different decision,” he says.

“They know what the US can do with limited strikes,” says the ambassador, referring to Operation Midnight Hammer last June, in which the US struck Iranian nuclear facilities at the end of the 12-day Israel-Iran war.

“Imagine what they are capable of with the level of assets that they have assembled that are currently poised and staged and ready to go,” he says.

Huckabee says his comments during a recent interview with far-right pundit Tucker Carlson — in which he suggested Israel could conquer much of the Middle East amid a conversation on Israel’s rights to the biblical borders of the promised land — were “taken out of context,” and that it was “downright dishonest on Tucker Carlson’s part to carefully and strategically edit my response so that he could create some narrative that is utterly false.”

He says he sent the full transcript to Arab leaders after widespread criticism from across the region.

Huckabee also says that he hopes Herzog sues Carlson for defamation after Carlson, who has invited a string of antisemitic and anti-Israel guests on his show — falsely accused Herzog of visiting sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s island. Carlson later apologized for the accusation and excised that clip of the interview from the published version.

“You can’t let Tucker Carlson get away with antisemitic, anti-Israel hate. It’s really dangerous,” Huckabee says.