Trump endorses Netanyahu for re-election nine days before Israel's vote, calling him a 'great warrior'
President Donald Trump has publicly backed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of Israel's 27 October election, giving him what he called his complete and total endorsement. The intervention comes with Netanyahu's coalition trailing in most polls and short of the 61 seats needed to form a government.
President Donald Trump has thrown his support behind Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bid for re-election, announcing the endorsement on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, nine days before Israelis vote on 27 October. It is an unusually direct intervention by an American president in an Israeli election campaign.
In the post, Trump praised Netanyahu as a "Great Warrior Prime Minister" and as a partner in confronting Iran, and said he was giving him his "Complete and Total Endorsement". He argued that, with anyone else in charge in Jerusalem, the United States would have to carry the burden against Iran on its own — something he said he was not inclined to do. Netanyahu quickly thanked him online, saying the two would complete the mission together.
The backing lands at a difficult moment for Israel's longest-serving prime minister. Most recent polls put Netanyahu's governing coalition below the 61 seats required for a majority in the Knesset, and analysts quoted in coverage of the endorsement question how much it will move voters who have already made up their minds. His main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, responded that he respects the US president but that Israeli elections are a domestic matter to be decided only by Israel's citizens.
The endorsement also follows months of visible strain between the two leaders over Iran and Gaza, during which Trump had repeatedly held back from backing Netanyahu. By choosing to intervene now, so close to election day, Trump has made the US–Israel relationship an explicit part of the final stretch of the campaign — and tied America's approach to Iran, at least in his telling, to who wins in Jerusalem. Source: AP