US President Donald Trump has endorsed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a social media post on Sunday 18 October, nine days before Israel's legislative election on 27 October. He gave a full endorsement and praised Netanyahu as an ally in the war on Iran, calling him strong, brave and brilliant and saying he would never let America down.
Trump argued that Iran would eventually have attacked the United States and Israel, and that the war had left it systematically destroyed. He added that if Israel chose anyone other than Netanyahu, America would have to do this work itself.
The endorsement reverses his earlier reticence. Asked repeatedly in a magazine interview earlier in October about Netanyahu's performance, Trump declined to back him. In a brief phone interview he later said he was always going to endorse him and just did not want to do it too soon, and when asked whether he could work with another Israeli leader he said maybe he would and maybe he would not.
Netanyahu said in a video that he was honoured and humbled and called Trump a greater friend of Israel than any previous occupant of the White House. He also addressed American voters on rising petrol prices, saying that Iran acquiring nuclear weapons would be worse and that prices would fall only under Trump.
No Israeli polling is cited, but the race is described as close, with Netanyahu's Likud and its far-right coalition facing the prospect of losing to an opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot, head of the Yashar party. No response from opposition figures to the endorsement has been published. Separately, a poll finds roughly two-thirds of US voters disapprove of Trump's handling of the Iran war, and his Republican Party faces midterm elections on 3 November.
The US and Israel launched the war on Iran jointly on 28 February 2026, and it has disrupted global oil and gas supplies with no clear end in sight. The two leaders have met more than half a dozen times since January 2025, with reported disagreements over Iran and other conflicts, and in June Trump acknowledged calling Netanyahu a profane insult during a call in which he criticised Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
