El-Sayed backs Trump plan to end Israel aid: ‘I agree with him on that’

Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D-Mich.) on Thursday said he was in support of President Trump’s recently announced plan to stop aid to Israel.

“I agree with him on that,” El-Sayed said on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe.”

“I don’t think that we should be continuing to subsidize a foreign military that has done the worst things with our money. I agree. I’d love to work with him on doing that. In fact, I don’t know that we should be continuing to sell weapons to a country that is, again, using our weapons to do awful things,” the senator-elect added.

On Tuesday, Trump said that he had come to a deal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop aid to Israel this year.

In an interview with Fox News’s “Fox & Friends,” the president said he and the Israeli leader made a deal “months ago” for the U.S. to halt its aid to Israel.

“They’re fine with it,” Trump said. “They’ve become a very successful country. They don’t need it, and we won’t be paying anymore.”

Trump said Washington would continue to assist Israel if they needed it and that the country had been “a great ally.”

The end of aid would mark a key shift in American foreign policy. Israel is seen as one of the biggest recipients of foreign aid from the U.S., with that aid requiring congressional authorization.

El-Sayed, who won his race against former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) on Tuesday, had advocated for halting aid to Israel and spending that money on domestic issues on the campaign trail.

American support for Israel has become a contentious issue in the last few years as Israel has carried out its war in Gaza, killing tens of thousands of Palestinians. Some have labeled Israel’s actions in the conflict a “genocide.”