Vance declines to endorse Netanyahu after Trump offers full support for re-election

Vice President JD Vance declined to endorse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, a day after President Donald Trump publicly backed Netanyahu as he seeks re-election this month.

“I’m not getting involved in the Israeli elections,” Vance said in an interview on Mark Halperin’s show “2WAY Tonight.”

“I’m not anti-endorsing him; I’m not pro-endorsing him,” Vance added.

Trump weighed in on the election Sunday, strongly backing Netanyahu’s re-election bid.

“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 on Truth Social.

“Bibi Netanyahu has been Strong, Brave, and Brilliant in the face of tremendous opposition, including that coming from even Israel, itself,” he said, adding that the post represents his “Complete and Total Endorsement of Bibi Netanyahu.”

Vance said Monday that Trump has “the most effective endorsement in American or international political history.”

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He further defended his refusal to get involved in the race by saying he endorses “American candidates,” adding “that’s what I’m focused on” as the midterm elections approach.

While Vance declined to endorse Netanyahu, the vice president did travel to Hungary in April to stump for then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who was ultimately voted out after 16 years in power.

Vance also reiterated Monday that he has not decided whether he will run for president himself in 2028. But should he do so, Vance said, he thinks Trump will endorse him.

“I really have not made up my mind about what to do in 2028. I just haven’t focused on it,” Vance said. “I think if I run, the president will endorse me right away, right at the beginning.”

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Trump’s endorsement of Netanyahu comes as the Israeli leader faces mounting backlash over the U.S. ally’s deadly assault on Gaza and intensifying settler violence in the occupied West Bank, where attacks on Palestinian farmers, activists and journalists flared over the weekend.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday that the Trump administration was “very disturbed” by the images that emerged after American journalist Heidi Levine, a photographer working for The Washington Post, was among those attacked just days before Trump offered his support for Netanyahu.

Netanyahu cast doubt on the attack, calling it “alleged.”

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee welcomed the arrest of 10 suspects Monday after what he called a “despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards.” Levine remains in the hospital.

Vance has previously taken a more skeptical stance toward Israel than many on the right.

In June he warned Israel against opposing American efforts to negotiate an end to their joint war with Iran.

“Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time,” Vance said at the time. “If I was in the Cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.”

Polling shows a decline in support for Israel among the American public over the past few years.

Favorable views of the Israeli government fell from 47% in 2022 to 32% in 2026 in 2026, according to polling conducted in May by the Pew Research Center.