An admission while the polls were open

On the morning of 3 November, as Americans queued to vote in the midterms, Donald Trump phoned Fox & Friends and announced that the United States would stop paying Israel. Few people will have taken that at face value from the president who moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, and they were right not to. He had not broken with Netanyahu. Instead, he made an admission, and he made it while the polls were still open.

Brian Kilmeade asked him to confirm it. "We were giving them $4 billion, we are, but it gets cut off at the end of the year," Trump said. The real figure is $3.8 billion a year, under a ten-year agreement Barack Obama signed in 2016, which runs to September 2028. Asked why, Trump first said Israel no longer needs the money. Then he gave the political reason, and named the Democrat running for the Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed.

A few minutes later he said it more plainly still. "I don't like that because, you know, it's too easy. It's almost too easy a target." Of El-Sayed's rallies, he said, "You take that off the table."

There is his reasoning, in his own words. Paying Israel had become an easy attack for the candidates who were beating his party, so he wanted it gone from the campaign. That is a president conceding, on the day of the vote, that what America gives Israel's military has become a liability with American voters. By the next morning the Democrats had won the House and the Senate.

He had every reason to want the subject gone.

Americans are against it, and he knows it

Trump was right about one thing. The aid is a bad talking point for him, because Americans have turned against it. In July, for the first time since the Chicago Council on Global Affairs began asking in 2012, a majority of Americans, 56%, said US military aid to Israel should be cut or stopped altogether, and 35% said stopped. On polling day, 51% of voters told NBC's exit poll that US support for Israel is too strong.

The turn has reached his own party, through its young. Of Republicans aged 18 to 29, 54% told Marquette Law School in July that Israel gets too much US military aid, against 16% of Republicans aged 60 and over. Older and MAGA Republicans still back it, and the Chicago Council found 73% of MAGA Republicans want it kept the same or increased. His party's young voters are moving the other way.

Washington's pro-Israel lobby was already changing course. On 21 October AIPAC told its members it would stop endorsing candidates and stop giving money to campaigns directly, while keeping its super PAC. The day after the vote, Vice President JD Vance shared a pollster's list of what would bring lost voters back, and the fourth item on it was "Change our relationship to Israel".

His defenders will point to the first reason he gave, that Israel no longer needs the money. Yet Israel is not walking away from American support, and nor is Trump. What the two governments are negotiating is where the money goes next.

So Trump faced a public that no longer wants to pay for Israel's military, and he gave it the words it wanted to hear. He did not give it the policy.

The weapons and the help stay

Nothing Trump said that morning would stop Israel getting American weapons. Asked whether Israel could still buy them, he said, "Oh, yes, they can buy whatever they want." He went on, "Now we'll help Israel if they need it." Kilmeade asked him twice whether he meant the weapons or the cash, and he would not choose. "You can consider it barter, you can consider it military aid or cash."

American weapons are what Israel has used in its genocide in Gaza. Bellingcat found the remains of US-only munitions in at least 79 Israeli strikes there, strikes that killed at least 744 people, at least 175 of them children. On polling day, Trump told Fox that Israel can keep buying whatever it wants, and in a call of almost 28 minutes he did not mention Gaza once.

So the promise was never about Israel's supply of American arms. It was about the line in the budget that Democrats like El-Sayed could campaign against, and how to stop them doing it. And the money in that line is not stopping either. It is moving.

The money is moving, not stopping

If the aid were really ending, there would be some sign of it. There is none. The $3.3 billion grant, paid through the State Department, is in US law for 2026, and the House voted it through again for 2027 on 15 July. No order, budget change or letter to Congress has followed Trump's words. On 7 November the Times of Israel reported that his own ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, had told Channel 12 he did not know whether the funding would end this year and was seeking clarification.

What both governments describe instead is a change of address. The other $500 million of the "$4 billion" already comes out of the Pentagon's budget, for Israel's Iron Dome, David's Sling and Arrow missile defences, and always has. When Congress last rushed money to Israel, in April 2024, it sent about $10.4 billion through Pentagon accounts, three times the $3.5 billion it gave through the State Department grant in the same law.

Israel has said plainly where it wants the rest to go. In June its Defence Ministry opened talks with the Trump administration on a deal "to replace the existing MOU", with the stated aim of moving "from aid" to "expanded joint investment in research, development, and co-production". Three days after Trump's call, Netanyahu's office described what was happening as a "transition out from aid towards partnership and mutual investment". On 22 July the House voted 216 to 212 for Section 219 of the annual defence bill, which orders the Pentagon to name an office to run joint US and Israeli weapons work, including moving it "from research and development into procurement". Congress's own research service sets out where that road ends, with the grant phased out and replaced "with joint cooperative programming from defense accounts", and oversight moving from the foreign affairs committees to the defence ones.

That fits exactly what Trump said he wanted. He wanted the aid off the table, and this plan takes the talking point off the table while leaving the money on it. Even a Republican congressman could see it. "The same American taxpayer funds will just flow through as military assistance/coordination instead of as a separate line item in the appropriations bills," Thomas Massie wrote on the day. He called the announcement "a desperate Election Day lie".

The change of address changes the rules too. J Street, which opposes Section 219, points out that weapons bought with the grant are covered by US laws meant to stop arms going to governments that commit grave human rights violations. Of the joint work Section 219 would expand, it warns that "there is concern that no equivalent laws would apply to most aspects of cooperation". Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. Moving its weapons money into programmes those laws may not cover is the opposite of cutting it off.

Duss went on, "Americans will be paying more with even less Congressional oversight." That is the plan in one sentence. The Americans who want the aid cut would keep paying for Israel's military, through a budget where the payments are harder to see. Duss called the real news "Trump acknowledging that aid to Israel is a political loser", which Trump had said himself on Fox.

None of this is law yet, and no money has moved.

Most of the press took him at his word

Americans could only hold Trump to his promise if they were told what it left out. Most of the press did not tell them.

We read every English-language report NewsCord's story pipeline collected on the announcement, and every British national outlet we found that covered it, each in its latest version, 33 outlets in all. We asked the same five questions of each one.

Start with the headlines. Only three of the 33 questioned his promise. The Guardian wrote that Trump "claims" the US will end the aid, Mondoweiss wrote "That's not true", and the Media Line added "Despite MoU". Twenty-nine passed it on without question, and four of those stated it as fact in their own voice. AP's headline read "US will halt $4B in aid to Israel as the Mideast ally weans itself from American dependence", and the Seattle Times and ITV ran it under the same words.

The Telegraph went further than Trump himself. Its standfirst called it a "Decision to pull billions in aid", and its Washington correspondent wrote that Trump "announced he was ending all aid to Israel by the end of the year". In the same breath as his announcement, Trump had said, "Now we'll help Israel if they need it." The Telegraph gave its readers a bigger promise than the one he made.

The newsrooms knew why he said it. Thirty-one of the 33 reported that Trump had tied the decision to politics, most of them with his "bad talking point" line or his attack on El-Sayed. The New York Times wrote that he described it "chiefly as a political effort". ABC put "citing political reasons" in its headline. CNN and the Jewish Chronicle chose his other reason for theirs, that Israel does not "need it". So most of the press reported his admission and headlined his promise.

Twenty of the 33 mentioned Gaza, and most of them only as the reason Americans have turned against Israel. Only a few told readers what Israel has done there. The Mirror reported that a UN Commission of Inquiry had found that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. NBC quoted a Brown University study finding that US arms "have been central" to Israel's operations there. Thirteen outlets, among them AP, CNN, Fox News and the Telegraph, did not mention Gaza at all, in reports about the money that buys Israel's weapons.

Then the money. Israel's Defence Ministry talks, Congress's research and the House vote on Section 219 were all public by the end of July. Yet only four outlets told readers the money was moving into the Pentagon or the defence budget instead of ending. They were The National, Mondoweiss, the Jerusalem Post and Ynet, and three of those four got there two days later, on 5 November. Twelve mentioned a piece of it, such as the $500 million for missile defence or the defence bill, without saying the money carries on through it. Not one said the Pentagon already pays $500 million of the "$4 billion".

The BBC is the clearest case. It told its readers it was "unclear" what money Trump meant. The same evening, The National told its readers where the money is heading.

Even the outlets that looked ahead mostly told it Israel's way. Seventeen described what comes next as closer cooperation or a partnership, the language Israel's government uses. Four of them quoted Netanyahu's line from June, that it was time for Israel "to move from aid recipient to partner". Seven told readers the aid would wind down or that Israel would buy its own weapons. Only one, The National, told readers that Americans would keep paying, and it did so by quoting Matt Duss.

In Britain it was worse. Ten British national outlets covered the announcement, the BBC, the Guardian and the Telegraph among them. Not one told its readers where the money is going, or that Americans would keep paying for it.

On the day a president conceded that aid to Israel had become a liability, a newsroom's job was to tell readers what his words would actually change. Only four of the 33 did, and none of them was British.

Americans paid for his war, and he would do it again

The money was never the whole of America's support for Israel. The largest part is the war on Iran, and it is where Trump puts American voters second most plainly. On the morning he announced the end of Israel's aid, Trump called Israel America's "helper", and told the hosts that the US had hit a newly built Iranian anti-aircraft site "last night", the eve of the vote. The two countries have been at war with Iran together since they attacked it on 28 February, and his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said two days later that the US went in when it did because Israel was about to strike.

In the same remarks he said, "No matter what, ultimately, this operation needed to happen. That's the question of why now."

Trump has since tied the war to Netanyahu by name. On 18 October he wrote, "If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work [in Iran] ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so", as Axios quoted it, with Axios's bracket. On 25 October he told Israelis, "Vote for Bibi Netanyahu for prime minister, we have to finish the job that we started!" He was campaigning in Israel's election, and the reason he gave was the war.

Americans pay for that war in far more than aid. The Congressional Budget Office puts its cost at about $38 billion to 1 August, and says the US used "significant quantities" of its interceptors "defending Israel". None of that is counted as aid, and ending the aid would not touch a dollar of it.

They have paid for it at the pump as well. Petrol averaged $2.91 a gallon in February, the month the US and Israel attacked Iran, and $4.31 in October, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Diesel went from $3.72 to $6.25, and reached a record $6.53 in the week of 21 September.

On polling day, voters told him what they made of it. In NBC's exit poll, 63% said attacking Iran was the wrong decision, and 74% said the war was a crucial or major factor in their vote. Of the same voters, 87% were concerned about the cost of petrol and diesel, 63% blamed higher prices on Trump's policies, and 62% said he puts his own interests ahead of the country's.

Trump heard them. Asked whether he agreed with JD Vance that the war had cost them the election, he said, "I think it's largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term." Petrol up by almost half is not a little bit, and eight months is not short term. Then he said, "But at the same time, if I had it to do again, I'd have to do it again."

He dropped the aid in words, because it was costing votes, and kept the war he agrees cost his party the election. Americans paid for that war at the pump, and on polling day most of them said it was the wrong decision. He told them he would do it again. One answer for American voters, another for Netanyahu. That is how little Americans count with him.

What happens next

None of the money is settled yet, which is why Americans should watch where it goes, whatever Trump says about it. The Senate has not passed its version of the defence bill, which carries a US and Israeli weapons programme of its own, and if the two chambers agree a final bill, the Pentagon's role becomes law. On 11 December the stopgap that funds the US government runs out, with the $3.3 billion grant already voted through for 2027 by the House. In January the Democrats take control of both houses of Congress. The talks on a new agreement, led for the US by Huckabee and Daniel Holler of the State Department, have published no text.

Americans pay for Trump's backing of Israel, and most of them have said they are against it. He promised them the payments would stop. He kept the weapons, the war and the money, and the plan on the table moves the money out of their sight.