Trump Again Endorses Netanyahu, Who Touts Backing Ahead of First Israeli Election Since Oct. 7 Attack
Corey Walker
US President Donald Trump greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Sept. 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Donald Trump has reiterated his public endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reelection bid as Israelis prepare to head to the polls on Tuesday for the first time since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion and massacre.
In a Truth Social post published on Sunday evening, Trump praised Netanyahu’s leadership and urged Israeli voters to support him in the election, pointing to their cooperation in confronting shared security threats.
“When you go to the Polls please remember that Bibi [Netanyahu] has been an outstanding Warrior Prime Minister!” Trump wrote, adding that the two leaders had worked together successfully on major military operations.
“Vote for Bibi Netanyahu for Prime Minister,” Trump added.
The US president concluded his message with a call to continue their joint military efforts against Iran, writing that the two countries needed to “finish the job that we started.”
The endorsement came one week after Trump first threw his support publicly behind Netanyahu in an unusually direct intervention in Israeli politics, warning that choosing another leader could leave Washington to confront Iran without an Israeli partner willing to do the same.
Trump’s latest message of support comes as Israel heads into an election dominated by the wars in Gaza, Iran, and Lebanon that followed the Oct. 7 massacre; demands for accountability over the security failures that led to the attack; disputes over ultra-Orthodox military service; and the rising cost of living.
The future of American-Israeli cooperation is also another major issue looming large over the election.
Trump’s latest statement reinforces his administration’s close relationship with Netanyahu, whose government has made countering Iran’s regional influence and military capabilities a top security priority.
Netanyahu has touted Trump’s endorsement in the final days of the campaign.
“US President Donald Trump has come with a friendship that has never existed before between an Israeli prime minister and an American president. And it is doubtful we will ever have such a friendly president again,” Netanyahu said in a televised appearance late on Sunday night. “He has another two years, and he says he is calling on you to vote for me.”
Netanyahu added that Trump was willing prepared to help “finally, finally, remove the Iranian threat,” but only with Netanyahu as prime minister.
“And I have already instructed the Mossad [intelligence service] and the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] to bring down this regime, to bring down this regime because that is the only way to put an end to this threat,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu’s principal challenger, Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff who leads the centrist Yashar party, praised Trump as “a true friend of Israel” in his own social media post.
“I value his efforts and his commitment to Israel’s security, and I am confident that he will work in full cooperation with any leader chosen by the people,” he added.
Trump’s endorsement followed reports that Netanyahu and his allies had stepped up efforts to secure additional public support from the American president in the final stretch of the campaign.
Both Trump and Netanyahu have denied such reports.
“I never spoke about it,” Trump said when asked by reporters later on Monday whether Netanyahu had requested the second endorsement
“I put out both endorsements. I put out both … I think he’s done a very good job as prime minister under very trying conditions,” Trump added.
In recent days, Netanyahu has suggested that Israel will likely continue to undergo diplomatic isolation amid simmering international outrage over the war in Gaza. The Israeli premier has argued that the state will likely need to accelerate weapons manufacturing and implement measures to circumvent financial sanctions.
On Sunday, Netanyahu put Iran at the center of his final campaign push, warning that Tehran and its proxies could launch attacks to disrupt the election, hours after sharing an AI-generated image of a nuclear explosion over Tel Aviv.
The image was accompanied by a post by political commentator Yuval Bloomberg arguing that Iran’s nuclear ambitions overshadowed every other issue facing Israeli voters.
“If two atomic bombs fell in central Israel, who would care about all these pointless controversies?” the post read, citing other disputes and characterizing them as unimportant by comparison.
Eisenkot accused the prime minister of resorting to “hysterics.”
“As in every election campaign, it’s the same methodology of lies and scare tactics. This time, threatening Israeli citizens with mass destruction,” he wrote on X.
The final polls released Friday by Israel’s three main television news networks showed Eisenkot’s Yashar ahead of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud, but neither political camp securing the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-member Knesset.
In Israel’s parliamentary system, voters choose party lists rather than a prime minister directly. Parties must receive at least 3.25% of the national vote to enter parliament, and the president subsequently tasks the lawmaker considered best positioned to assemble a governing coalition with doing so.
“It looks like an indecisive outcome is the most likely outcome,” Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, said in a statement based on the latest polling.
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