In Washington, thousands of journalists work, but there is one who seems to get almost all the exclusives: Barak Ravid.
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This Israeli reporter has become one of the most influential figures in the American media landscape. There is not a week in which he does not publish a breaking story on the portal he works for, Axios. The latest, details of the phone conversation that Donald Trump had this Monday with Beniamin Netanyahu to demand restraint in Lebanon.
According to Ravid’s account – based on three anonymous sources – the U.S. president told the Israeli prime minister that he was “fucking crazy” to bomb Beirut in the middle of peace negotiations with Iran. “What the hell are you doing?” the Republican supposedly asked him. “You’d be in jail if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your skin. Now everyone hates you. Everyone hates Israel for this,” he allegedly added.
An explosive revelation that has been picked up by media around the world, just like other previous exclusives by Ravid related to the Iran war, such as his recreation of the call in which Trump demanded Arab leaders join the Abraham Accords or the details of the preliminary agreement between Washington and Tehran to end the conflict.
Military background
Before starting his journalistic career, Ravid was in the Israeli army’s Unit 8200, dedicated to espionage
The stories uncovered by Ravid demonstrate his privileged access to the White House, as well as his good connections with power centers in the Middle East. Not for nothing, before making the leap to Washington from Tel Aviv, the reporter – who also collaborates with CNN – shone as a diplomatic correspondent in leading Israeli media such as the newspaper Haaretz and the television channel Channel 13.
Ravid also has extensive experience handling sensitive information: before dedicating himself to journalism, he served as an officer in Unit 8200, one of the most controversial divisions of the Israeli army, dedicated to intelligence and cyber defense. This team is credited with actions such as the explosive attacks hidden in searches against Hizbullah members in 2024 or the development of the AI system Lavender, used to identify military targets in Gaza.
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Those ties to espionage come to light every time Ravid publishes one of his exclusives. On social media, his fiercest critics accuse him of being an undercover Mossad agent and working to promote Israel’s interests. In fact, the reporter, after spending six years in Unit 8200, remained linked to his country’s army as a reservist. A connection he maintained until 2023, when he announced his retirement due to Netanyahu’s decision to dismiss then Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Ravid is also reproached for his excessive closeness to Trump and his circle. He is accused of acting as an unofficial spokesperson for the White House, and of spreading information that seems designed to manipulate financial markets and the political board. A paradigmatic example of this would be his coverage of the Iran and United States peace negotiations: in recent weeks, the journalist has repeatedly announced that the agreement was “close” or “imminent,” always based on anonymous sources, and those announcements have often coincided with suspicious movements in the stock market, such as massive sales of crude contracts.
“Someday it will be essential to discover and hold accountable the people who benefit from these constant and absurd leaks of imminent peace, often through the same medium,” said Ben Rhodes, former advisor to Barack Obama, on May 8 in a message on X, referring to one of those exclusives by Ravid followed by an extraordinary crude sale.
But Ravid does not respond to the criticisms. He keeps doing his thing: hunting for the next exclusive.
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