It’s tough to keep up with the Trump administration’s stance on foreign election interference. According to MAGA logic, Russian election meddling is a hoax. But Italy and perhaps even Venezuela may have helped Democrats steal the 2020 election from Trump. Trump’s allies accused the Biden administration of interfering in Romanian elections, but of course it’s fine for JD Vance to support the far-right German AfD. It’s also OK for the U.S. to meddle in Brazilian elections to support Flávio Bolsonaro. It was bad when the EU opposed Orbán, but good when Vance supported Orbán in the Hungarian elections. Now Trump has endorsed Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s election—a first for an American president—and thrown in a warning about what happens to American help against Iran if Israelis pick anyone else.
MS NOW reports:
“If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so,” Trump wrote in his glowing Truth Social post backing Netanyahu. Trump called Netanyahu “an even greater Partner for Peace in combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran.” It was the first time a U.S. president had explicitly backed a candidate for Israeli prime minister—another example of Trump departing from the longstanding American tradition of not publicly endorsing candidates in foreign elections.
The election left Israel deadlocked, but an American president threatening the withdrawal of U.S. military help against Iran if Israeli voters don’t do his bidding is offensive. The aid is questionable and America should rethink it regardless of who Israel’s leader is.
And as with the AfD, Orbán, and Bolsonaro, Trump’s thumb landed for a familiar type. Netanyahu is not only an illiberal right-winger, but on trial for corruption, a case Trump has pressed Israel’s president to throw out and give the prime minister a pardon.
Nor is Trump finished: having claimed credit for Netanyahu’s showing, he now reportedly wants a say in who sits in Netanyahu’s next coalition.
The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.
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