U.S. President Donald Trump pressed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last week to move ahead with normalizing relations with Israel, but the closed-door exchange grew tense as the Saudi leader pushed back, Axios revealed, citing two U.S. officials and a separate source briefed on the meeting.

Trump entered the November 18 meeting hoping that, with the Gaza conflict over, Saudi Arabia might be ready to join the Abraham Accords. Publicly, both leaders praised one another and projected unity. Behind the scenes, however, parts of the conversation were “difficult,” the sources said.

According to U.S. officials, the White House had signaled to the crown prince before the meeting that Trump expected tangible movement toward Saudi-Israeli normalization. When the two leaders sat down, it was Trump who raised the issue and pressed the crown prince “very hard” to sign onto the accords, the officials said.

It was at that point that the tone shifted. The sources said MBS pushed back firmly, telling Trump he supported the idea of normalization in principle but could not advance it now due to widespread anti-Israel sentiment in Saudi Arabia following the Gaza war. He told the former president that Saudi society “isn’t ready” for such a step at this moment, according to all three sources.

Although the exchange remained civil, “the conversation was tough,” said one U.S. official and the independent source familiar with the talks.

“The best way to describe it is disappointment and irritation. The president really wants them to join the Abraham Accord. He tried very hard to talk him into it. It was an honest discussion. But MBS is a strong man. He stood his ground,” the source added.

During the meeting, MBS reiterated a condition that he has now stated both privately and publicly: any normalization deal with Israel must include “an irreversible, credible and time-bound path” toward establishing a Palestinian state. Israel’s current government rejects any such pathway.

“MBS never said no to normalization. The door is open to doing it later. But the two-state solution is an issue,” one U.S. official said.

A White House official, commenting on the meeting, said Trump has laid out a vision of a more prosperous and stable Middle East built in part on expanding the Abraham Accords.

“Now that Iran’s nuclear program has been totally obliterated and the war in Gaza has ended, it is very important to President Trump that all Middle Eastern countries join the Abraham Accords, which will advance peace in the region,” the official said.