One day before Israelis vote, Donald Trump has endorsed Benjamin Netanyahu again.
In a Truth Social post early Monday, Israel time, the US president re-shared the endorsement he issued on Oct. 18 “to those who haven’t seen it,” and closed with a direct appeal: “Vote for Bibi Netanyahu for Prime Minister, we have to finish the job that we started!”
The first endorsement already broke new ground. It was the first time in the history of US–Israel relations that a US president explicitly and publicly endorsed a candidate in an Israeli election. American presidents have favored Israeli candidates before. Bill Clinton worked to help Shimon Peres win reelection in 1996 through a series of diplomatic conferences, but he never publicly endorsed him.
Trump has now done so twice in nine days.
The Iran case
The new post is almost entirely about Iran. Trump cites Operation Midnight Hammer and Operation Epic Fury (the US names for what were known in Israel as Operation Rising Lion and Operation Roaring Lion), and claims Iran now has no navy, no air force, a shattered economy and inflation at 301%. He calls Netanyahu “an outstanding Warrior Prime Minister.”
The Oct. 18 letter was more explicit about what comes next. In it, Trump warned that unless Iran changes course, “we will soon finish the job,” but only if Netanyahu is in charge. If Israel chose anyone else, he wrote, America would have to do the work itself, and he is “not inclined to do so.”
The timing of that “job” may not be far off. Axios reported that Netanyahu and Trump had discussed launching a major new operation against Iran before the Israeli and US elections, but Trump grew more hesitant and decided to wait until after the votes. The White House has ruled out American strikes before the Nov. 3 midterms. But at a Florida rally on Friday, Trump said, “We may do another little Epic Fury, or they’ll agree,” adding that most people seem to think it’s after the election.
Israel votes Tuesday. America votes a week later.
Netanyahu’s message, now in Trump’s words
The phrase in Trump’s post will sound familiar to Israeli voters. It is Netanyahu’s.
After the first endorsement, Netanyahu published a video of his call with Trump, filmed at an air force base. “Donald, we have a job to finish [in Iran]…and we’ll finish it together. We’ll finish it, and no one else will do it,” he said.
🚨🇮🇱🇺🇸 During an important phone call with President Trump, Netanyahu urged the U.S. to join Israel in permanently eliminating the threat from Iran. https://t.co/xuJVyuExJK
— C14 News | EN (@c14english) October 19, 2026
His allies made the same point. Defense Minister Israel Katz said Trump backed Netanyahu because only Netanyahu can continue the cooperation between the IDF and the US military to complete the goals of the campaign against Iran. On Fox News, Netanyahu said removing Iran’s regime will happen if he can work together with Trump during the next two years, the last two years of Trump’s term.
On Monday, the president effectively repeated that argument back to Israeli voters.
The other side
Netanyahu’s main challenger, Gadi Eisenkot, has said Trump is a great friend of Israel but that only Israel’s citizens will decide who the next prime minister is. Netanyahu, for his part, has warned that an Eisenkot win would let Iran go nuclear. Not because Eisenkot is unaware of the threat or under any illusions regarding the Islamic Republic. But because, according to Netanyahu, Eisenkot doesn’t have the fortitude to make the hard decisions under international pressure, and he doesn’t have the ear of the American president the way Bibi does.
Polls have shown a close race, with most showing Netanyahu’s coalition short of the 61 seats needed to form a government.
The choice is still Israel’s. But Trump has made sure Israelis will cast their ballots with one question in mind: who they want in the room when the war with Iran resumes.
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