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← All fact checksAfternoon run · November 5, 2026 · #5 by reach
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Did Trump say he'd move to Israel and become prime minister because he has 99% approval there?

Did Trump say on Election Day that he'd move to Israel and become prime minister if Americans tired of him, claiming a 99% approval rating there, and is that rating real?

True, but…

The quote is real and verbatim; the 99% approval figure and the job offer are not.

Yes, Donald Trump said this. In a 3 November 2026 phone interview with Fox & Friends on US Election Day, he claimed 99% approval in Israel and joked he would move there and become prime minister if Americans tired of him. The quote is accurately reported. The 99% figure is baseless, and Israeli law bars him from the job.

+5Sources ↓Original post ↗
Genuine
The post as it circulated, labelled by our media check.Video · 0:24 · 1920×1080

Claims

✕ 2 false

Trump said he would move to Israel and become prime minister if Americans tired of him.1478

“"If people ever got tired of me in the U.S., I'll move to Israel and become prime minister."”

~ Partly trueCentral claimHigh confidence

Trump said these words. The interview is documented from several directions: Fox News posted its own clip of the call, the Washington Times, MassLive, News18 and Middle East Eye all reported the remark the same day, and a dedicated fact-check located it at 22:20 of the Fox interview. Those outlets are not fully independent of one another — most are reporting the same broadcast — but the broadcast itself is the primary record, and it exists. So the quote stands as an accurate account of what he said. The second half of the claim, that he would become prime minister, is where it falls apart. Israel's prime minister must be eligible for election to the Knesset, which requires Israeli nationality, and nothing in the record shows Trump holds it. Trump himself framed the line as a joke, and he made a similar quip in May 2026. Readers should weigh two separate things: whether he said it (he did) and whether it could happen (it could not). The post's caption handles this reasonably by writing "He claims" before the 99% figure.

Still open: Whether Trump has ever held or sought Israeli nationality is not established in the record we reviewed.

Trump has a 99% approval rating in Israel.2368

“"I'm at 99% approval rating in Israel."”

✕ FalseHigh confidence

No published poll puts Trump anywhere near 99% in Israel. The closest measure in our sources is a Jewish People Policy Institute index reported on 2 November 2026, the day before the interview, which found 73% of Israelis rate him a better-than-average US president for Israel's interests. Earlier fact-checking of the same 99% figure found reputable polls clustered between roughly 69% and 79%. A separate 2026 survey reported by The Independent found 67% of Israelis thought his policies were bad for Israel — a different question, but hardly consistent with near-unanimous support. The decisive point is not that the exact number is slightly off. It is that the number appears to have no source at all. Trump supplied no polling data when he said it, and no pollster has produced a 99% result. A claim with no traceable source that no independent survey approaches is not a rounding error; it is unsupported. The poll numbers we do have come from different pollsters asking different questions, so they should be read as a range of signals rather than a single agreed figure — but every one of them sits far below 99%.

Trump has the highest approval rating of anybody in history.3

“"I have the highest approval rating of anybody in history."”

✕ FalseHigh confidence

This line sits in the same breath as the Israel figure and fares no better. The Washington Times, reporting the interview, put Trump's overall job approval between 32% and 38% at the time. That is not a record high by any measure; it is a middling-to-low rating for a sitting president. No polling in our sources supports a historic-high claim, and the claim is so broad — "anybody in history" — that it would require an extraordinary body of evidence to support. None was offered. We treat this as part of the same boast rather than a separate controversy. The pattern matters: a speaker who inflates one number in a sentence tends to inflate the next, and readers who spot the first exaggeration have good reason to check the second. The sources here are limited — one outlet supplies the approval range — but the claim is not close enough to the truth for the exact figure to be the issue.

Americans are tired of Trump and Israelis are tired of Netanyahu.36

“"I think they're already tired of you, Mr. President, but Israelis are tired of Bibi, too."”

– OpinionModerate confidence

This is the poster's own commentary, not a factual report, and it is phrased as a judgment ("I think"). It cannot be rated true or false in the way a poll number can. That said, it is not pulled from nowhere. Trump's US approval was reported in the 30s, which is consistent with widespread dissatisfaction, and Israeli surveys in 2026 have shown large majorities wanting Netanyahu to step aside, as reflected in the polling coverage we reviewed. So the opinion is broadly in line with available data even though it is opinion. Readers should notice the difference: the caption separates Trump's claim ("He claims to have a 99% approval rating") from the poster's view, which is a fair way to present both. The opinion is a reason to read the post with awareness of the poster's stance, not a reason to doubt the clip.

What was posted

X

Mario Nawfal posted a short clip on X of President Donald Trump speaking on Fox News, with Fox & Friends on-screen graphics and footage of polling places. The clip is captioned with the Israel prime minister remark and the 99% approval claim, and the poster adds his own critical comment aimed at both Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. The post asks readers to take the clip as a genuine record of what Trump said.

“🚨🇺🇸🇮🇱 Trump: “If people ever got tired of me in the U.S., I’ll move to Israel and become prime minister.” He claims to have a 99% approval rating there. Well, I think they're already tired of you, Mr. President, but Israelis are tired of Bibi, too. I guess you'd be a pretty”

Posted on X by Mario Nawfal, an account that regularly reposts and comments on political clips. The video is a repost of Fox News broadcast material; other outlets and accounts, including Fox News and Clash Report, posted the same interview the same day.

Who posted it

X
@marionawfal

4M followers · Account 6 years old

View the account on X ↗

Account check

Looks like a genuine account28%
Likelihood of automation40%

Estimates from public signals — account age, posting pattern, audience — not a judgement of the person behind the account, and separate from whether this post is true.

What stood out

  • The account is a real, high-profile X news-aggregation brand run by Lebanese-Australian entrepreneur Mario Nawfal, not a fabricated persona.
  • It has a documented record of false or unverified claims, including PolitiFact false rating for a Samantha Power net-worth claim, a false Iran F-18 shootdown claim, a false Bondi Beach attacker nationality claim, and a false Antarctica Starlink livestream.
  • A October 2026 Combat Antisemitism Movement study found 40.5% of accounts amplifying Nawfal's top posts showed strong bot-like signals; Nawfal has acknowledged using an engagement-boosting firm.
  • The operation runs around the clock with roughly 249,000 posts since 2020 and reportedly does not vet posts for accuracy before publishing.
  • It regularly platforms authoritarian and Kremlin-aligned figures such as Sergey Lavrov, Alexander Lukashenko, and Aleksandr Dugin with little pushback; Conspiracy Watch describes it as spreading false and hateful narratives.
  • Its very large reach (about 3.8-4 million followers) and frequent amplification by Elon Musk give unverified content mass distribution.
Signals (7)+
Posting cadence
Very high; ~249k posts since 2020, 24/7 paid writing team
Follower ratio
Unknown
Notable news coverage
Guardian, NPR, NYT, AFP, Jerusalem Post, Conspiracy Watch, NBC News
Fact check history
Multiple false claims; PolitiFact false rating; other debunked viral posts
Bot amplification
40.5% of amplifiers bot-like in CAM study; acknowledged paid engagement-boosting service
Affiliations
IBC Group, Citizen Journalism Network, The Roundtable
Content pattern
High-volume aggregation, sensational breaking-news posts, pro-Russian and anti-Israel lean

Account checked November 5, 2026, 14:53 UTC

The media

Video
GenuinePresented as real footage

✓ What is genuine

The video is genuine Fox News broadcast material of Trump's 3 November 2026 phone interview on Fox & Friends. The remark about moving to Israel and the 99% figure were really said. What is not genuine is the accuracy of the boast inside the clip.

The tells

  • ●●● Strong signal On-screen Fox News graphics are internally consistent across frames — 'PORTLAND, ME LIVE 8:29 AM ET', 'FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS' Senate panels cycling through Minnesota, Mississippi and North Carolina, and a chyron reading 'PRESIDENT TRUMP ON F&F AS POLLS OPEN ACROSS U.S.'our visual review
  • ●●● Strong signal The audio matches word for word the quote independently documented from the same Fox interview by reporters and a fact-check.published sources and our visual review
  • ●●○ Supporting signal Polling-place footage and the 'polls open across U.S.' framing match the actual timing of US Election Day on 3 November 2026.our visual review
  • ●●○ Supporting signal No compositing seams, warped text or morphing artefacts appear in the frames we reviewed.our visual review

Synthetic-media detector

Detector not consulted

The media is incidental to the claim; the detector was not needed.

How we checked the media

  • Reviewed the video frames for on-screen graphics, chyrons and setting.
  • Compared the spoken words in the clip with the verbatim quote reported by multiple outlets and a dedicated fact-check.
  • Checked whether the described scene was plausible for its stated date and setting (US Election Day, 3 November 2026, polls opening).
  • Did not run an AI-generation detector; the assessment rests on visual review, the broadcast record and published sources.

Sources

8 sources reviewed

Further reading

The full story

The kernel of truth here is simple: Trump said it. On the morning of 3 November 2026, as polls opened for the US midterms, he called in to Fox & Friends to give a final Election Day message. During the call he claimed 99% approval in Israel, said he had "the highest approval rating of anybody in history," and joked that he would move to Israel and become prime minister if Americans ever tired of him. Fox posted its own clip, and outlets from the Washington Times to MassLive to News18 reported the remark the same day.

That is why the post feels credible: the footage is real, the voice is real, and the words are exactly as captioned. Nothing about the clip was staged or edited. The problem sits one layer down, in the boast itself. No poll has ever put Trump at 99% in Israel. The Jewish People Policy Institute's index, published the day before the interview, found 73% of Israelis rated him better-than-average for Israel's interests. A separate 2026 survey found 67% of Israelis thought his policies were bad for Israel. His US approval sat in the 30s.

The prime minister line was a joke, and it also has a legal wall behind it. Israel requires its prime minister to be eligible for Knesset election, which means Israeli nationality. Trump made a similar quip in May 2026. In the same call, he announced the US would end roughly $4 billion in annual military aid to Israel by the end of 2026 — a substantive policy statement that travelled with far less attention than the joke.

That is the shape of this story: a genuine clip, a real remark, a baseless number, and a punchline that was never meant to survive a fact-check.

Kernel of truth

Trump really made the remark, verbatim, in a Fox & Friends phone interview on 3 November 2026. The clip is authentic; the 99% approval figure inside it is not supported by any poll.

Timeline

  1. May 2026

    Trump makes a similar quip about becoming Israeli prime minister, according to earlier fact-checking of the 99% claim. 2Lead Stories via Yahoo News

  2. November 2, 2026

    The Jewish People Policy Institute's Israeli index finds 73% of Israelis rate Trump better-than-average for Israel's interests. 8Middle East Eye

  3. November 3, 2026

    In a Fox & Friends phone interview as US polls open, Trump claims 99% approval in Israel and jokes about becoming prime minister; he also announces the US will end about $4 billion in annual military aid to Israel by the end of 2026. 7FOX Broadcasting Company

How it was framed

Misleading contentFalse context

The video is genuine and the quote is accurate, but the post carries a boast — 99% approval in Israel, a record-high rating, an available prime minister's job — that is unsupported or legally impossible. The framing invites readers to accept the numbers because the footage is real.

  • “Visual proof”. A broadcast clip with Fox News chyrons and polling-place footage is presented as the record of the remark, lending the boast the authority of live television.
  • Unsourced statistic. "I'm at 99% approval rating in Israel" and "I have the highest approval rating of anybody in history" are stated without any poll or source.
  • Emotional language. The clip opens with siren emojis and US and Israeli flags in the caption, and the poster writes "I think they're already tired of you, Mr. President."
  • Missing context. The caption does not mention the Israeli polling published the day before, or that Israeli law requires the prime minister to be an Israeli national.
  • Borrowed authority. The quote is framed as "Trump:" speaking on Fox News, borrowing the authority of a national broadcast.

Posted on X by Mario Nawfal, an account that regularly shares and comments on political clips. The same Fox News interview was posted the same day by other outlets and accounts, including Fox News and Clash Report. The caption labels the approval figure as Trump's claim ("He claims") and adds the poster's own commentary.

Bias

NoneSlightModerateStrong

Leans anti-Trump. The clip itself is straight Fox News broadcast material, but the poster's own caption adds a mocking aside ('I think they're already tired of you, Mr. President') and a jab at Benjamin Netanyahu, framing the excerpt as evidence of both leaders' unpopularity.

Bias describes how the post frames its message — the slant of the language, selection and emphasis — and is judged separately from whether the claim is true. A true claim can still be framed with a strong slant.

How we checked

1 min 2 s
  1. 1

    Searched for the quote and the approval figure in combination, to find reporting and fact-checks of the remark.

  2. 2

    Searched for reporting on the Fox & Friends Election Day call on 3 November 2026.

  3. 3

    Searched for Israeli polling on Trump's approval in 2026.

  4. 4

    Searched for fact-checks of the 99% claim specifically.

  5. 5

    Reviewed the video frames for on-screen graphics, chyrons and setting, and compared the audio to the documented quote.

  6. 6

    Compared the polling figures in our sources against the 99% claim and the record-high claim.

✓ Claim checked✓ Media checked✓ Sources checked

Why 90% confidence

Moderate

HIGH on the quote and on the polling claims: the broadcast record exists, a dedicated fact-check confirms attribution, and several publications report the same polling picture. The headline band is MODERATE because the overall judgement is TRUE_BUT — the remark is genuine, but the boast inside it is false and the job is legally impossible, so the story is more mixed than a simple true or false.

Limits. We did not open the full Fox News broadcast ourselves and relied on the posted clip, the broadcaster's listing and published reporting. We did not run an AI-generation detector, because the clip is not pivotal to the claim; our assessment rests on visual review and sources. We did not independently poll Israelis.

What we don’t know

  • Whether Trump has ever held or applied for Israeli nationality, which bears on the prime minister joke.
  • Which specific polls, if any, Trump or his team were relying on when he cited 99%.
  • How the announced end to roughly $4 billion in annual military aid by the end of 2026 will be implemented.

Spot it yourself

Find the overstatement

Looks suspicious, isn’t proof

  • The poster adds his own political opinion at the end of the caption. Commentary around a clip is a reason to read carefully, not proof the clip is fake.
  • The alarm-style emojis and blunt tone. Format and tone do not change whether the words were said.
  • The clip is short and reposted rather than linked to the original broadcast. Short clips are worth checking, but brevity alone proves nothing.

The actual evidence

  • The same quote appears, word for word, in same-day reporting by several outlets and in a dedicated fact-check that places it at 22:20 of the Fox interview.
  • Fox News posted its own clip of the interview, so the primary record exists.
  • The polling record: a JPPI index published 2 November 2026 found 73% of Israelis rate him better-than-average, and earlier fact-checks put reputable polling at roughly 69% to 79%.
  • The legal record: Israel's prime minister must be eligible for Knesset election, which requires Israeli nationality.
  • Trump's US approval at the time was reported between 32% and 38%, which contradicts the record-high claim.
  1. 1

    Separate the quote from the claim inside the quote

    Ask two questions: did he say it, and is what he said true? Here the first answer is yes and the second is no. A real clip can carry a false statement.

  2. 2

    Look for the original broadcast

    Search the speaker's name plus the programme name and date. If the broadcaster has posted its own clip, you have the primary record.

  3. 3

    Track down the number

    When a post quotes a statistic, ask who measured it. Search the figure plus 'poll' and the country. If no pollster has published it, that absence is the finding.

  4. 4

    Check the legal claim

    For statements about who can hold an office, look up the country's election rules from an official or established source rather than relying on the post.

  5. 5

    Watch for the joke defence

    When a speaker frames a claim as a joke, check whether the factual part is still being repeated as fact by others.

Takeaway

A genuine recording can carry a false claim. Verify the words and the facts separately: the clip being real says nothing about whether the numbers in it are.

Questions people ask

Did Trump really say he'd move to Israel and become prime minister?+

Yes. Trump said it in a phone interview with Fox & Friends on the morning of 3 November 2026, as US polls opened. Fox posted its own clip, and several outlets and a dedicated fact-check confirmed the wording, placing the remark at 22:20 of the interview.

Is Trump's 99% approval rating in Israel real?+

No. No published poll puts him near 99%. The Jewish People Policy Institute's index published 2 November 2026 found 73% of Israelis rate him better-than-average for Israel's interests, and earlier fact-checking found reputable polls between roughly 69% and 79%. A separate 2026 survey found 67% of Israelis thought his policies were bad for Israel.

Could Trump actually become Israel's prime minister?+

No, not under current law. Israel requires its prime minister to be eligible for election to the Knesset, which requires Israeli nationality. Nothing in the record shows Trump holds it, and he framed the line as a joke. He made a similar quip in May 2026.

Does the video show Trump's real words?+

Yes. The clip is genuine Fox News broadcast material, with consistent on-screen graphics and audio matching the documented quote. What is not accurate is the boast inside it: the 99% figure and the record-high approval claim.

Why do real clips with false claims spread so easily?+

Because the visible evidence — a familiar broadcaster, a recognisable voice, on-screen graphics — feels like proof. People check whether the clip is real and stop there. The harder question is whether the numbers inside a genuine clip hold up, and that takes a separate search.

Go deeper

Approval rating
The share of people in a survey who say they approve of a leader's performance, usually measured by a polling organisation with a published method.
Knesset
Israel's parliament; eligibility for election to it is a legal requirement for becoming prime minister.
Fact-check
A published assessment that compares a specific claim against primary evidence and polling.
Primary record
The original source material itself — here, the broadcaster's own clip of the interview — rather than a repost or summary of it.
Misleading content
Genuine material used in a way that frames an issue or person misleadingly, even though the material itself is real.

People also search for

Trump 99% approval rating in Israel move to Israel become prime minister"If people ever got tired of me in the U.S., I'll move to Israel"Trump Fox and Friends Election Day call Israel prime minister jokeIs Trump's 99% approval rating in Israel real?Trump could run for prime minister in Israel
For educators+
Authenticity versus accuracy: a genuine recording can contain a false statement.Unsourced statistics and how to trace a number back to a pollster.Legal eligibility rules and how they constrain political claims.
  • The clip is real, but the 99% figure is not. How would you explain that distinction to someone who says 'but I saw the video'?
  • What would you need to see to accept that a politician had 99% approval anywhere?
  • Should a poster who adds critical commentary be held to a different standard than one who shares a clip without comment?

About this check

Platform
X
Posted by
@marionawfal
Posted
November 3, 2026
Age when checked
Older post, still live
Where it spread
United States, Israel
Audience
US audience
Language
EN
Status
● Post is live
Verified
November 5, 2026, 14:54 UTC
Published
November 5, 2026, 14:54 UTC

Reach. Mario Nawfal X post; MeidasTouch Facebook post; Snopes fact-check 4 Nov

This verdict was generated with AI from the sources shown. AI can make mistakes — check the sources before relying on it.

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