US midterm elections: Trump asks ‘Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like El-Sayed?’ while announcing end to $4 billion Israel aid

As Americans deliver their verdict on Donald Trump's tumultuous second presidency Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said that Washington would stop $4 billion in funding to Israel by the end of this year. Trump said he made a deal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But US would continue to sell its weapons to its close Middle East ally, news agency Reuters reported.

Trump called the roughly $4 billion in aid “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.

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What Abdul El-Sayed said about US funding to Israel

The US funding for Israel and the Israel-Gaza war has been a hot topic in congressional elections, including in Michigan. Michigan candidate Abdul El-Sayed has criticised the funding for Israel and said that it could be better spent on domestic priorities such as education, healthcare and child care.

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“The money that we are spending to subsidize apartheid in the West Bank is money that should be used on the West Side (of Detroit),” he said in a recent podcast interview with Daily Show host Jon Stewart. “That’s our money. It should be spent here.”

El-Sayed has called Israel “an affordability issue.” In an Oct. 29 rally in Kalamazoo, El-Sayed mentioned taxes funding foreign militaries alongside consumer spending on gasoline and healthcare.

“It shouldn’t be this hard to pay your taxes and know that that money is going to be spent on you and your kids rather than dropping bombs on somebody else and their kids,” he said.

El-Sayed has said Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged President Donald Trump to begin the war in Iran, which has sent gasoline prices soaring. The US has spent $47.1 billion on the Iran war, according to a recent Pentagon estimate, The Associated Press reported.

El-Sayed has called Israel’s conduct in Gaza a genocide and said the country is perpetrating apartheid in the West Bank. “We’re paying $5 gas. We’re paying more for groceries, because of war we should not be fighting, at the behest of whom? The government of Israel,” he said in an NBC interview released Oct. 15.

US midterm elections 2026: Why did Trump cut funds to Israel?

Trump's announcement that US will end nearly $4 billion in annual military aid to Israel is seen as an unusually timed announcement on Election Day that could set up a standoff with Congress. “They’re fine with it because they’ve become a very successful country,” Trump said. “They don’t need it. And we won’t be paying anymore...we won’t be paying Israel. We’ll help Israel if they need it. They’ve been a great ally.”

Trump added that 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.”

The announcement could signal a major shift in the longstanding US-Israel relationship, which has relied heavily on billions of dollars in American military assistance. Under a 10-year agreement signed during former President Barack Obama's administration, the US pledged to provide Israel with $38 billion in military aid between 2019 and 2028.

Congress passed a law in 2020 authorizing the funding for Israel, but the Senate and House must still pass appropriations bills every ⁠year to ​distribute and release the funds.

Netanyahu said in an interview with an Israeli television channel in October: "If you think ​we're going to continue receiving what I secured twice, and that's tens of billions of dollars in American aid for the defense budget, prepare yourselves and get used to the fact that it won't happen because ​America has changed."

(With agency inputs)