Trump is even taking credit for other people’s election victories. Netanyahu’s result? “It’s down to me.”

Votes are still being counted in Israel, but Donald Trump has already decided who has won: himself. The US president shared a message on his social media platform Truth attributing Netanyahu’s strong result – which he describes as a comeback – in Tuesday’s Knesset elections, the first since 7 October 2023, to his own endorsement. “When President Trump threw his support behind Bibi Netanyahu, the tide turned,” reads the post, which quotes a certain Irving C. Schwartz. “And now, instead of a clear defeat for a great prime minister, it looks like a comeback draw, or even a VICTORY for Netanyahu. It all happened AFTER President Trump’s endorsement, as he only wants what is best for the Middle East, Israel and the United States.”

The problem is that, for now, there is no clear winner. According to exit polls, Likud remains the largest party, but neither Netanyahu’s bloc nor that of Gadi Eisenkot – the former Chief of the General Staff who heads the Yashar list and is calling for the Prime Minister to be ousted – has reached the threshold of 61 seats required to form a government. And the Arab parties, with around eighteen MPs, could prove decisive.

As early as Tuesday evening, on the flight back from a rally in Texas, Trump had given his take on the vote: “I feel it went very well. It’s very close, very good. When my support came in, it helped him a great deal.” 

After all, it was Netanyahu himself who had made the US endorsement a campaign issue. On Sunday, on the eve of the vote, in a televised address he said that Trump had brought “a friendship that has never existed before between an Israeli prime minister and an American president”, and that “it is unlikely we will ever have such a friendly president again”. Then came the appeal: “He still has two years to go, and he is asking you to vote for me.” The two remained in close alignment throughout Trump’s second term, right up to their joint attacks on Iran.

The timing is no coincidence. Next Tuesday, the United States will vote in the mid-term elections, and the polls look bleak for the Republicans: voters disapprove of the war with Iran and are complaining about the cost of living – the two issues on which the Democrats have built their campaign. Claiming a comeback abroad is a way of portraying themselves as winners at home.

A striking discrepancy: on Sunday, in Brazil, Flávio Bolsonaro – whose first-round result Trump had hailed as “a great victory” – lost the run-off against Lula, and has since flown to the United States. There is no mention of that defeat on Truth.