Donald Trump has said that the US will end military aid to Israel at the end of this year in a surprise election day announcement that appeared to be targeted at voters sceptical of US support for Israel and the war in Gaza.

In a phone interview with Fox News as voting began on Tuesday morning, the US president said the US would cut nearly $4bn (£2.96bn) in military aid to Israel because “they don’t need it”.

“We were giving them $4bn … But it gets cut off at the end of the year,” he said.

Trump also indicated that he had decided to end the aid – which he claimed would be replaced by arms sales to Israel instead – because it had become a popular criticism of US foreign policy led by outspoken candidates including the Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.

“Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like El-Sayed when they don’t need it?” Trump said. “It’s a bad talking point.”

During the interview, Trump claimed that the abrupt ending of aid was proposed by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. “We give them $4bn of things and money, and they don’t need it,” he said. “And I was approached by Bibi Netanyahu, and we’ve been talking about it for a couple of years because it’s a lot of money.”

Netanyahu had previously suggested tapering off US military aid to Israel over the next decade, but Trump’s announcement on Tuesday would significantly accelerate that timeline.

Israeli officials appeared to be taken by surprise by the announcement, and leading members of the opposition said it showed the damage that Netanyahu had done to the US-Israel relationship. The announcement comes at a crucial moment after Netanyahu’s party lost its majority in the Knesset in last week’s elections and the opposition is trying to cobble together a coalition to replace him.

“The fact that the security establishment, along with Israeli citizens, is learning about a change in the strategic relationship framework through the media highlights just how much Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct poses a genuine danger,” said Gadi Eisenkot, a centre-right rival to Netanyahu who is seeking to replace him as prime minister. “We can no longer rely on him and must replace him.”

“A responsible prime minister would have fought to increase American aid, not dismantle it,” wrote Yair Golan, the head of the Democrats opposition party. “Netanyahu is deepening the security and economic crisis, putting Israel’s future at risk.”

Israel received most of the approximately $3.8bn in 2025 as foreign military financing grants that allow the country to buy US military hardware including F-35 fighter jets. Another $500m was given for joint missile defence programmes.

Trump’s announcement on Tuesday appeared timed to affect the outcome of the midterm elections, in which US foreign policy and support for Israel have played an unusually important role in key races, including the Michigan senatorial race where El-Sayed is running against Republican Mike Rogers. El-Sayed would become the country’s first Muslim senator if he is elected.

A Quinnipiac University poll released in September showed that 48% of Americans believed that the US was too supportive of Israel, and other recent polls have shown a historic shift away from US support for Israel and Netanyahu’s government.

Anger over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has helped usher in a wave of progressive Democratic candidates including El-Sayed, and Trump’s vice-president, JD Vance, has openly accused Israel of trying to sabotage US negotiations with Iran. In a June interview with the New York Times, Vance said of Israel’s foreign policy: “You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.”

During his Fox News interview, Trump spoke warmly about Netanyahu and also boasted about his own popularity in Israel. “If people ever got tired of me in the US, I’ll move to Israel and become prime minister,” he said.