JERUSALEM, Israel — U.S. Ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman told Breitbart News on Tuesday in an exclusive interview that President Donald Trump had been “excited” about moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
“I spoke to him a couple of mornings ago,” Friedman recalled, speaking on the terrace of the King David Hotel, with a view of the Old City.
“He called to check in. We have a personal friendship. He’s excited about this. He felt this was something important, something historic, something very much on the right side of history — or, as others have said, on the right side of God.
“I’m happy that he’s happy. I’m here to serve him.”
Friedman also said that he felt a sense of pride in his own role in securing the embassy move — a role that is commemorated in stone on the commemorative plaques dedicating the opening of the facility.
“There’s no words to describe the pride that I feel,” he said. “I see my kids, who were able to make it — though there was one in court yesterday, a lawyer, who couldn’t disappoint his client. But the rest of them flew in for the day.
“As a father and a husband, to see the pride your kids have in you, to think about what my father would have thought about this, were he alive — it’ hard for me to process. It’s too soon, too close. I hope one day, with more time, to think about it.”
He said he had maintained his energy through days of events and speeches because he was simply so excited.
“The adrenalie is still working. I’ll crash at some point. But I have a deep sense of satisfaction.
“You say I was fighting to get this done,” he told Breitbart News. “Of course there were people in and out of government that agreed with the decision. That doesn’t matter when you have a president who is fully on board, which he was — he supported it before he was elected.
“It was not that much of a political struggle,” he concluded.
