Dem
54
Ties
2
GOP
44
On Tuesday, Donald Trump went on Fox and Friends to announce that he will cut off nearly $4 billion in annual military aid to Israel. Needless to say, making this announcement on Election Day is extremely strange.
There are some obvious complications here. First, Trump also said that he and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to this months ago. That is surely a lie. It is inconceivable that Netanyahu would agree to an abrupt cutoff, although he has talked about gradually reducing Israel's dependence on the U.S. over a period of 10 years.
Second, even if Netanyahu did agree, why did Trump keep this a secret until Election Day?
Third, it is not up to Trump to decide. The appropriation was made by Congress. Presidents are not allowed to decide if they want to spend money Congress has appropriated. Not spending it is called impoundment and it has been illegal since Richard Nixon tried it and Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 in response, making it illegal. That could be an article of impeachment down the road.
Fourth, the military-industrial complex won't be happy about this. The $4 billion is not shipped to Israel as boxes of the other kind of Benjamins. It is spent giving contracts to defense companies like Lockheed Martin and RTX (formerly Raytheon) that employ American workers in American factories to make missiles and other military gear that is then shipped to Israel. Abruptly ending the contracts midstream would result in many workers getting fired instantly. Some of them might not have cast their votes yet when he made the announcement.
Fifth, on the other hand, the country that would love this the most is Israel's sworn enemy: Iran. Does Trump have a secret deal with Iran in which he cuts off $4 billion in Israel's military help and in return, the Iranians buy $4 billion in Trump crypto?
Sixth, is he trying to affect domestic Israeli politics by weakening Netanyahu's standing with Israelis and making it even more difficult for him to put together a governing majority? What sense does that make?
So, why the announcement on Election Day? Trump is desperate, but if he thinks this decision will help Republicans, why didn't he make it last week? By the time he made it, probably 80 million people had already voted. And whose votes does he think he can buy with this decision? Jewish voters nationwide are not going to like it. Neither are evangelical Christians. Is he courting the Muslim vote? Did he want all the Muslims in Michigan to hasten themselves to the polls—where they will probably all vote for Abdul El-Sayed (D)?
Did Trump think he will get voters who support the DSA to vote Republican on account of this? If so, he is further gone than we thought. While DSA voters may cheer him on this one issue, they oppose him and the Republicans on everything else.
But maybe Trump is playing 3D chess here. Matt Duss, executive vice president for the Center for International Policy, suggested that what Trump really wants is to shift the money to a (controversial) legislative proposal to create a joint U.S.-Israel technology and military partnership. That way he can hide the money in the Defense Appropriations Bill, where it will get less attention.
Will the rout on Tuesday change this plan? We have no idea. Nothing Trump does makes any sense. (V)