Trump Netanyahu Endorsement: Complete and Total Backing
The trump netanyahu endorsement arrived Sunday when President Donald Trump gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu his full backing in Israel’s October 27 parliamentary election, ending weeks of public refusal to take sides.
“Complete and Total Endorsement”
Trump announced the move in a Truth Social post addressed to the people of Israel, declaring that Netanyahu had been “strong, brave, and brilliant” despite facing heavy opposition at home. “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,” he wrote.
He praised Netanyahu as “a great warrior prime minister” and an even greater partner in confronting Iran, and warned Israeli voters against choosing anyone else. “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,” Trump wrote, adding in all caps that Netanyahu “will never let you down.”
Netanyahu responded quickly, thanking Trump for his “tremendous support and the joint work” between the two countries.
A Sharp Reversal
The endorsement marks a striking turnaround. On Thursday, asked on Newsmax whether he trusted Netanyahu, Trump answered bluntly: “I don’t trust anybody in the world of politics.” Earlier this month he told Time magazine he was no longer involved in Israeli politics, and back in August he said staying out of Israel’s election was “most appropriate,” while adding he might endorse someone.
Trump has long been a fixture of Netanyahu’s campaigns — Israeli highways in past election seasons carried billboards of the two men side by side. But this time, Netanyahu’s new campaign posters do not feature the American president, though Trump still appears in some Likud videos, a possible signal of the distance that had grown between them.
A Tight Race on October 27
The October 27 vote is Israel’s first national election since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that plunged the country into war in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. Netanyahu, who leads the Likud party, is fighting for his political future against centrist rivals, most prominently former military chief Gadi Eisenkot and his Yashar party, amid public anger over corruption scandals and the security failures that preceded the attack.
Trump’s message lands with just over a week to go, and carries a warning aimed well beyond the ballot box: describing Iran as systematically weakened both militarily and financially, he wrote that unless Tehran changes course, the two allies would “soon finish the job.”
Source: Reuters