Trump says his endorsement helped Netanyahu and a tie could count as a win

Update, 28 October, 08:07 Israel time

Trump has now addressed the result on camera, adding a new line: that a tie could count as a win for Netanyahu. N12's foreign desk carried the president's remarks in his own voice, in which he said he believed his support had helped Netanyahu and that he had heard the prime minister did well. As rendered in Hebrew by N12, Trump called the race fairly close and said he had heard of either a tie or a win, adding that in this case a tie could be regarded as a victory.

The remarks rely on what Trump says he had heard, and he did not cite any figures or say where his information came from.

The Jerusalem Post published what appears to be part of Trump's original English wording, which the article below noted had not been available. In that version, Trump wrote of himself in the third person, saying that when President Trump endorsed Bibi Netanyahu, "the whole tide" turned. The Jerusalem Post framed the claim as Trump saying his endorsement shifted momentum in the race for the 26th Knesset, and ran an image of Trump speaking beside Air Force One.

There is still no response in the new reports from Netanyahu, Likud, his opponents or the Israeli government, and neither report gives vote counts or seat figures.

The story as first reported

US President Donald Trump has credited his own public endorsement of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with saving the Israeli leader from a heavy loss at the ballot box, describing the result of Israel's election as a tie, or possibly a victory for Netanyahu. Ynet reported that Trump made the claim in a post on his own social network and repeated the sentiment to journalists while travelling back from Texas, telling them Netanyahu had been "very successful."

In the post, as rendered in Hebrew by several Israeli outlets, Trump wrote that once he expressed support for Netanyahu, whom he called by his nickname Bibi, the whole trend flipped. N12's foreign desk, which described the message as Trump's first response to the elections, quoted him as saying that instead of a crushing defeat for the prime minister, the outcome now looked like a significant tie after the gap narrowed. The Times of Israel summarised the post under the phrase "When Trump endorsed Bibi," reporting that the president attributed Netanyahu's electoral improvement to his backing.

What Trump said, and how it was reported

The substance of the message is consistent across every outlet. Trump argued that the race had been heading toward a decisive loss for Netanyahu, that a comeback followed, and that all of this came after his statement of support. He closed by saying he wants only what is good for the Middle East, Israel and the United States.

Because the reports are in Hebrew, the wording varies from one outlet to the next. N12 rendered the expected outcome as a "crushing" defeat, while the commentator Amit Segal and the site News.co.il used the word "decisive." Segal's channel described Netanyahu as a "great" prime minister; N12 and News.co.il used a word closer to "distinguished." News.co.il called the tie "dramatic," and N12 called it "significant." None of the material reproduces Trump's original English text, so the exact phrasing he used cannot be confirmed from these reports. N12 identified the platform as Truth, Trump's social network, and noted that it had edited its first version of the item shortly after publishing it.

Ynet's account also characterised the post as Trump attributing Netanyahu's result to himself, paraphrasing the president as saying the prime minister went from trailing to a tie, perhaps even a win.

How an Israeli election produces a "tie"

Israelis do not vote directly for a prime minister. They vote for party lists, and seats in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, are allocated in proportion to each party's share of the vote. To govern, a prime minister must assemble a coalition of parties that together hold a majority of seats. After the vote, Israel's president consults the parties and asks a lawmaker to try to form a government.

In this system, a "tie" usually means that neither the bloc of parties backing Netanyahu nor the bloc opposing him appears to have a clear path to a majority on its own. Such an outcome can lead to lengthy coalition negotiations. Israeli politics has seen several such deadlocks during Netanyahu's long tenure as the country's dominant political figure and its longest-serving prime minister.

Trump and Netanyahu

Trump and Netanyahu have long presented themselves as close allies, and Netanyahu has frequently highlighted his relationship with the US president to Israeli voters. An American president openly endorsing a candidate in an Israeli election is a departure from the traditional practice of Washington avoiding visible involvement in other democracies' votes, which is part of why Trump's claim drew immediate attention from Israeli media. The reports do not describe when or how Trump first announced his endorsement.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports provides vote counts, seat projections or official results, and none indicates whether Trump was referring to exit polls, partial counts or final figures. They do not say which polls or forecasts, if any, had shown Netanyahu heading for defeat before the endorsement, and they offer no evidence connecting the endorsement to any shift in voter behaviour beyond Trump's own assertion. The reports also carry no response from Netanyahu, his Likud party, his rivals or the Israeli government to the president's remarks. Whether the result Trump described as a tie will translate into a governing coalition, and for whom, is not addressed in the material.