A month later, it had fallen to 47%, according to a J.L. Partners poll shared exclusively with Secrets.

The extraordinary drop in support suggests that Republicans are taking their cue from Trump, who has grown increasingly, and often very publicly, frustrated with his regional ally.

“Why are you blowing up buildings?” Trump reportedly asked Netanyahu in a phone call about Lebanon last month, according to the Wall Street Journal, for example. “Stop blowing up buildings.”

On Wednesday, Trump declared the troubled truce with Iran to be over, bringing more uncertainty to the region.

The numbers spell real political trouble for Netanyahu. He faces elections at home later this year and could see his support from Washington eroded further in November’s midterm elections.

To test public views, J.L. Partners polled 1,059 registered voters.

Among all voters, the number who had a negative view of Netanyahu rose from 38% to 40%.

But most damaging for the Israeli prime minister as he tries to manage his most important geostrategic relationship is the collapse in Republican support.

During the time that the U.S. was negotiating a ceasefire with Iran, the Islamabad memorandum of understanding, Netanyahu’s net favorability with Republican voters, the difference between the number with a favorable opinion and those with a negative opinion, halved from +48 to +24.

The data suggest that GOP supporters are echoing Trump and his top officials.

One Trump aide said the president had unleashed an expletive-filled bombardment on Netanyahu at the start of last month, excoriating him for escalating attacks on Lebanon at the same time as talks were aimed at finding peace with Iran.

“You’re f***ing crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me,” is how the aide characterized their call. “I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.” 

Vice President JD Vance also delivered a rebuke to Israel from the White House briefing room amid reports that Netanyahu was furious with the Iran deal.

“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,” he said.

Meanwhile, MAGA defectors such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson have been unstinting in their condemnation of Washington’s support for Israel. They blame Netanyahu for dragging Trump into a war that Americans didn’t vote for.

No wonder Netanyahu has been doing the rounds of American TV studios to make nice.

He played down divisions with Trump in a Tuesday interview with CNN.

“He’s the president of the United States. He does what is good for the United States,” he said. “I’m the prime minister of Israel, I do what is what is important for Israel, and most of the time, these things are identical.”

He made the same point to Fox News at the weekend, sprinkling a little sugar on top.

“Donald Trump is a great, the greatest friend we’ve ever had in the White House, and I stand by that completely,” Netanyahu said.

Whether Americans, and even American Jews, are such great friends is another matter.

A poll published Tuesday revealed that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, an outspoken critic of Israel, is viewed more favorably by American Jews than Netanyahu.

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey found that 44% of American Jews hold a favorable opinion of Mamdani, compared to 39% who have an unfavorable view.

In contrast, Netanyahu’s numbers are underwater. Just 32% of respondents said they have a favorable opinion of the longtime Israeli prime minister, while 59% said they have a negative view.

Don’t mention the World Cup!

As we pointed out earlier this week, NATO leaders were hoping for a “no news is good news” type of summit in Turkey this week. So how is that going?

So far, Trump has set his sights on Greenland again, ripped up the ceasefire deal with Iran and promised to bomb it Wednesday night, and he has ordered an immediate halt to all trade with Spain, in apparent retaliation for its refusal to hike defense spending or support U.S. strikes on Iran.

We should have seen it coming, of course. Trump has cut an increasingly belligerent figure in recent weeks. He was dogged for days by embarrassing questions about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, his Great American State Fair attracted disappointing numbers, he remains at war with Republican senators, the Supreme Court blocked his executive order ending birthright citizenship, and a federal judge this week tossed a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump Media and Technology Group against the Washington Post in 2023 over a story headlined “Trust linked to porn-friendly bank could gain a stake in Trump’s Truth Social.”

Plus, Trump couldn’t even help the U.S. soccer team reach the World Cup quarterfinals. His call to FIFA President Gianni Infantino may have helped reinstate ace striker Folarin Balogun after a controversial red card, but the team still lost to Belgium.

NATO leaders do at least have a strategy for dealing with that.

Bart De Wever, Belgium’s prime minister, admitted to reporters that he would not be mentioning his country’s 4-1 victory on Monday night. He said Trump “has the reputation of sometimes reacting a bit irritably to things that he doesn’t like, and I think this defeat will hit hard.”

Quote of the day

Yesterday, we brought you news of Nigel Farage’s big gamble. The British populist leader announced he was stepping down from his parliamentary seat in Clacton to force a by-election and get voters to weigh in on whether he breached rules on political donations.

He is billing it as a “people versus the establishment” contest.

Just one problem. The big parties won’t play ball. Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, and Restore Britain quickly announced that they would not field candidates.

All of which means that Farage, who leads Reform UK, will instead be facing off against the usual array of bizarre and eccentric characters who run in high-profile elections. Jon Harvey, a comedian who regularly runs in by-elections as Count Binface, confirmed he will stand.

Rachel Reeves, the U.K. chancellor of the exchequer, took delight at the thought.

“I will accept Nigel Farage’s request to be appointed Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead,” she posted, describing the ancient mechanism that allows a member of Parliament to resign their seat. “It is a farce and a desperate distraction, and the people of Clacton deserve better.

“But if he wants to spend the summer arguing with a bin, I won’t stop him.”

Lunchtime reading

Tocqueville deserves a Washington statue: There is a statue to Edmund Burke, but nothing for Alexis de Tocqueville, “the other European giant who diagnosed the American soul.”

The Kamala Harris lesson Maine Democrats don’t want to repeat: And yet they seem to be unable to get out of their own way …

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