On Thursday's Morning Edition, NPR anchor A Martinez (not the soap-opera actor) interviewed Rand Corporation expert Shira Efron, who was in Tel Aviv, on the closeness of President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Efron talked up how it could be like joint election interference: "If you remember, during Trump's first term, and Netanyahu was prime minister, Netanyahu basically received, if you will, the policy choices by the United States that supported his government the whole time. And Netanyahu himself has basically intervened in U.S. elections - endorsing Trump, visiting him in Mar-a-Lago in the summer of 2024 in the middle of election campaigns."
But as Netanyahu runs for re-election the NPR anchor naturally assumed -- wrongly -- that Trump was a big drag on Bibi's ticket: "You mentioned how Netanyahu is lagging in the polls. How much is his relationship with President Trump part of the reason? Or all of it, maybe?"
Efron had to tell him he was dead wrong:
EFRON: Well, actually, President Trump still enjoys very high approval ratings in Israel. If I remember the numbers correctly, even after some Israeli disappointment from the interim outcome in Iran in the summer, his approval ratings among the Jewish population moved from the 90s to close to 80%. So it would have - actually supposed to boost Netanyahu's credentials.
Many Israelis - and this is something that I think would - is important to know for outsiders - even those who are very much in the opposition and would do anything in their power to remove Netanyahu from government - they still have tremendous respect for Trump because they think that the Israeli hostages would not have returned home if it wasn't for the interference of the - and the pressure of the president.
Martinez (actual first name: George) just closed out the interview, and skulked out of the embarrassment.
