President Trump announced Tuesday that he had reached an agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop US aid to Israel after the end of the year.
“They don’t need it,” Trump said on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning.
“We give them more than anybody else, and they no longer need it. We’ve been doing it for years. I’ve been doing it, but Israel is a very thriving country. They don’t need it. If they did need it, I would say keep it going.”
The president said the idea came from Netanyahu himself, suggesting that the agreement was also made to stop Democrats from using US funding to Israel as ammunition to criticize Republicans.
“He brought it up. He brought it up,” Trump said of the Israeli leader.
“He said, ‘I think it would be appropriate if we do not receive aid,’ because he understands that this is one of their points of contention.”
Trump said the roughly $4 billion in aid is “the best talking point that these lunatics on the left have.”
“Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like El-Sayed?” he asked, referring to Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, who has made Israel aid a flagship issue of his campaign.
“You take that off the table,” Trump said.
However, the president insisted that the Jewish state will still be able to buy American weapons.
Asked whether arms sales were also ending, Trump said, “Oh yes, they can buy whatever they want.”
He also touted new US Patriot and Tomahawk factories in the Tuesday interview, as voters head to the polls to decide control of Congress.
The US gives Israel $3.8 billion a year under a 10-year agreement signed in 2016 that runs through fiscal year 2028.
Trump did not clarify whether “the end of the year” means the deal will end early.
