Trump Endorses Netanyahu for Reelection Nine Days Before Israel’s Oct. 27 Vote
President Donald Trump endorsed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for reelection on Sunday, posting his backing on social media nine days before Israel's Oct. 27 parliamentary election, the country's first national vote since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack.
President Donald Trump endorsed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for reelection on Sunday, posting his backing on social media nine days before Israel’s Oct. 27 parliamentary election.
“Bibi Netanyahu has been Strong, Brave, and Brilliant in the face of tremendous opposition, including that coming from even Israel, itself,” Trump wrote. “Please let this Letter serve to represent my Complete and Total Endorsement of Bibi Netanyahu in his upcoming Race for Re-Election as Prime Minister of Israel.”
The endorsement ended weeks of uncertainty. Trump had withheld public support as the election drew closer, and relations between the two had been strained over the eight-month U.S.-Israel war with Iran, according to the Wall Street Journal. Asked by CNN analyst Barak Ravid in a phone interview why he waited, Trump said he had always planned to endorse Netanyahu: “I was always going to do that. I just didn’t want to do it too soon.”
Netanyahu thanked him within hours
Netanyahu responded on X, thanking Trump “for the tremendous support and the joint work” and adding: “Together we will complete the mission!” His Likud party attached a 35-second video of clips of the two leaders together.
In the same post, Trump warned that “we will soon finish the job” against Iran unless it changes its ways, and added: “If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so.”
A tight race ahead
The Oct. 27 vote is Israel’s first national election since Hamas attacked the country on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. Polls have Netanyahu’s Likud trailing the centrist Yashar party led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, and some analysts say Trump’s endorsement is unlikely to move many voters in a polarized electorate, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Reporting based on coverage by Reuters, CNN, the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal.
