US President Donald Trump has said some very revealing things about his sometimes tumultuous relationship with Israel and especially its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a fresh 60 Minutes interview which aired Sunday evening.

Among the most interesting remarks came in the below, wherein he painted a picture of bringing strong pressure to bear against 'Bibi' after which the Israeli leader complied with Trump's policy and wishes. "He's a guy that's never been pushed before actually," Trump stated, in an unusually candid assessment coming from a sitting US president. "I don't think they treat him very well... I pushed him. I didn't like certain things that he did, and you saw what I did about that." Watch:

This is unusual also for a Republican President to say as well, given GOP leaders never openly criticize Israel. Trump had at one point in the remarks emphasized again, "I did, I pushed him." 

But this moment is confirmation straight from Trump himself of what Vice President J.D. Vance described last week while speaking at a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi.

"The most recent Gaza peace plan that all of us have been working on very hard for the past few weeks — the president of the United States could only get that peace deal done by actually being willing to apply leverage to the State of Israel," the vice president had said. 

"When people say that Israel is somehow manipulating or controlling the President of the United States, they're not controlling this President of the United States," he added bluntly.

As we highlighted earlier, US leaders don't usually talk about Washington's relationship with Israel in terms of applying 'leverage' to get the desired outcome, as typically in US politics it's the other way around (given AIPAC's outsized influence etc.).

As for the ongoing Gaza ceasefire, which Trump has been proud of as a major peace accomplishment, Trump described that the truce is not fragile and that he would intervene to help Netanyahu when it comes to his legal troubles in Israel.

"The ceasefire agreement in Gaza is not fragile, but very solid. I would force Hamas to disarm very quickly if I wanted to, and it would be eliminated," Trump told the CBS 60 Minutes host. "Netanyahu is the person Israel needed in times of war," he said. 

He added, "I don't think they treat him very well. He's under trial for some things, and... I think it should – you know, we'll – we'll be involved to help him out a little bit, because I think it's very unfair."

This isn't the first time the US President openly talked about intervening in the legal case, which involves several graft-related charges, which Netanyahu has decried as politically motivated. However, the Israeli opposition has warned of external interference in the case, for obvious reasons.