WATCH: Biden, on Hot Mic, Says Netanyahu Needs to ‘Come to Jesus’

President Joe Biden told legislators on the floor of the House of Representatives on Thursday evening that he had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “you and I are going to have a Come to Jesus meeting.”

The phrase “Come to Jesus” refers to a confrontation in which one party demands that the other change his or her behavior.

Though it is not a specifically religious phrase, the idea of telling the elected leader of the world’s only Jewish state to “Come to Jesus” suggests a level of gross insensitivity, and in some contexts would be considered antisemitic.

The conversation took place as Biden greeted Democrats and well-wishers following his State of the Union address.

Biden was speaking to Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg nearby. He was apparently unaware that he was on a “hot mic” and being recorded.

Biden snubbed Netanyahu following his election in November 2022, until Israel and Saudi Arabia were approaching a peace deal in the early fall of 2023. Biden traveled to Israel following the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas, and has supported Israel by approving arms sales during Israel’s fight against Hamas in Gaza (and Hezbollah in Lebanon).

However, Biden has been more and more critical of Israel in public, and is pressuring Israel to make concessions, notably to the idea of a Palestinian state. Israel says that granting such a state today would reward Hamas for terror.

Biden, asked about the remark, did not deny it, but claimed that reporters had been “eavesdropping” on him.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.