Trump Says He and Netanyahu Agreed to End $3.8 Billion in Annual Military Aid to Israel by Year's End

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, Nov. 3, as American polls were open, that he had agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel by the end of this year. Trump explicitly tied the decision to the political mood in the United States.

The same day, voters handed Democrats the lead in the next Congress. Democrats want a tougher line on Israel, whether on Iran, Gaza or settler violence in the West Bank.

Netanyahu had not commented on the U.S. results or on Trump's aid remarks as of midweek.

Republicans blame the war

Vice President JD Vance said in a long post on X on Wednesday that "the reason we lost is the war." He listed four ways to win voters back, including ending the Iran war and changing the U.S. relationship with Israel.

Trump told Fox News the Iran war was partly to blame for Republican losses. He also acknowledged that war-driven price increases played a role.

The war is about eight months old. Netanyahu's campaign buses still carry posters of him and Trump with warplanes, praising the two leaders for hitting Iran together.

Trump's own words from last week sit awkwardly next to the aid announcement. In his endorsement of Netanyahu before Israel's vote, he wrote that "BIBI NETANYAHU WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!" and warned that if Israel chose anyone else, "America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so."

Iran watches and waits

Tehran has called the Republican loss a public verdict on the war. Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has led negotiations with Washington, wrote on X that if the U.S. government "betrays their public will to serve international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare."

Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said anyone who believes the results will shift U.S. policy is "deeply mistaken."

Trump has sent mixed signals. This week he told some journalists he is considering striking Iran hard, and told others he has no immediate plans to escalate.

Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group told CNN the war "has become a political albatross around his neck," leaving Trump to choose between a face-saving deal and doubling down militarily.

Netanyahu's math

Israel's own election left no one with a majority. The final count from the Central Elections Committee gave Netanyahu's bloc 53 of 120 seats and the opposition alliance led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot 48. A government needs 61.

The remaining 19 seats belong to two predominantly Arab parties, the Joint List with 11 and Ra'am with eight. A Joint List source told Fox News Digital that the alliance is likely to endorse Eisenkot for the first try at forming a government.

Netanyahu rejected that path on X on Monday. "The public in Israel does not want a government that depends on Ra'am and the Joint List," he wrote, calling them parties that "support terrorism and reject the existence of the Jewish state." He also said that "a clear majority in the Jewish public chose the Likud as the largest party." Likud won 27 seats, ahead of Eisenkot's Yashar with 21.

President Isaac Herzog scheduled consultations with every party in the 26th Knesset for Wednesday and Thursday, Nov. 4 and 5, before choosing who gets the mandate. The person chosen has 28 days to build a coalition, and Herzog can add up to 14 more.

A turning point or a rough patch

Yael Sternhell, a U.S. specialist at Tel Aviv University, called this "a new era." She said the Gaza war and the Iran war have changed how mainstream Americans, not just those focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, see Israel. Amit Segal, a journalist close to Netanyahu, called the U.S. political situation "a catastrophe for Israel."

Eisenkot has cast himself as the one who can repair ties. In an English-language statement he said he believes in liberal values and wants to work "closely and constructively" with Trump. Yair Golan, the leading left-wing figure in Eisenkot's bloc, said Netanyahu destroyed a bipartisan approach with a narrative of "eternal war and authoritarian rule."

Sternhell cautioned that Eisenkot "can't just be a nicer man" to get a softer approach from the new Congress. "He's going to need new policies," she said.

Not everyone reads the moment as a rupture. A Begin-Sadat Center analysis published this summer described the alliance as militarily more integrated than ever, with direct U.S. participation in the Iran campaign, missile defense support and intelligence sharing. It said Republicans remain broadly supportive and that no major legislation has fundamentally altered the relationship. It also said Trump and Netanyahu had clashed over Iran and Lebanon, and that Democrats are increasingly willing to challenge arms sales.

A former head of the Israeli Defense Ministry's Political-Military Bureau, writing for the Atlantic Council, blamed his own government for part of the slide. He cited its rejection of hostage deals, delays on "day after" planning for Gaza and what he called an illusion that Iran's regime could be toppled through air power and the Kurds. He called for a reset.

What is still open

Israel has relied on U.S. military aid for decades, and Trump's statement gives a deadline of about eight weeks. Neither side has said in public how the cutoff would work or what Netanyahu agreed to, if anything beyond Trump's account.

The nearer question is political. Whoever Herzog tasks with forming a government will start a 28-day clock facing both an aid cutoff set for year's end and a Democratic-led Congress.

The U.S. also still has to decide whether to strike Iran again.