WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters in the nation's capital are electing their first new mayor in 12 years, and a self-described democratic socialist is heavily favored to win.
Janeese Lewis George, a D.C. council member who easily won the Democratic primary in June, is facing DC Statehood Green Party candidate Robert Gross, independent Rhonda Hamilton, and 11 write-in candidates. Republicans in heavily Democratic Washington did not field a mayoral candidate.
Lewis George far outpaced six rivals, including former council member Kenyan McDuffie, to win her party's primary, capturing 54% of the vote.
Lewis George has pledged to aggressively stand up to federal intervention into Washington, D.C.’s affairs, setting up a potential showdown with Republican President Donald Trump over his administration's moves to challenge the city's limited autonomy.
Federal leaders retain significant control over local affairs, including approval of the budget and laws passed by the D.C. Council. About three of every four voters in the city are registered Democrats, and the city has only elected Democratic mayors since residents got the right to elect local officials under Home Rule in 1973.
Trump further encroached on that autonomy last year when he briefly federalized the city's police force and also deployed the National Guard after announcing a crime emergency. He has ordered major construction projects that — if they survive court challenges — would change the district’s landscape.
Lewis George has already come under fire from Trump, who had threatened before the primary to place the city under federal control if she won it. Lewis George responded that threatening home rule “because you do not like how residents vote is an attack on democracy itself.” Trump has not mentioned her publicly in months.
The next mayor will succeed Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is completing her third four-year term next Jan. 2 and decided not to run again. Bowser has said her achievements include improvements in public education and preserving the city's limited autonomy amid pressure from Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress.
FILE - District of Columbia mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George talks with a resident while canvassing in a Washington, neighborhood, June 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Brown, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States will stop providing $4 billion in aid each year to Israel in 2027 but will sell arms to its closest ally in the Middle East, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday.
The Republican president told Fox News Channel during a phone call on Election Day for the midterms that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had approached him about the idea and that they have been talking about it for a couple of years.
Trump said Israel doesn’t need the aid and it’s a lot of money for the U.S. to spend. But Trump also said that U.S. aid to Israel has become a Democratic talking point for candidates such as Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a vocal critic of Israel.
Even far-right conservatives, who have supported Trump in the past, have taken issue with U.S. support for Israel, with prominent commentators like Tucker Carlson openly questioning the value of the relationship.
“You can consider it barter. You can consider military aid or cash,” Trump said. “Look, we give them $4 billion of things and money, and they don’t need it. 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.”
But if Trump intended the announcement to make a last-ditch effort to sway midterm votes, analysts said it likely would not work.
“It's an open question if this was about politics, but it isn't going to change Republican voters, and it certainly isn't going to change Democratic voters,” said David Schenker, who served as Trump's top diplomat for the Middle East in his first term and is now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
There was no comment from Netanyahu or his office as of Tuesday evening Israel time, several hours after Trump's announcement. The prime minister did post twice on social media, but he focused on unsubstantiated allegations of foreign interference in Israel’s elections, not on what Trump said.
But at least some of his political opponents were critical.
His chief rival, Gadi Eisenkot, called on the prime minister to speak to the possibly radical change in U.S.-Israeli relations.
“The fact that Israel’s defense establishment is learning of a shift in our strategic relationship through the media, at the same time as the Israeli public, shows just how dangerous Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct is,” Eisenkot, a former military chief, said in a statement.
Yair Golan, a leader in Israel’s opposition bloc, said an end to U.S. military aid would deal a “severe blow to Israel’s security” at a time when the country is fighting wars on multiple fronts.
“The burden of funding defense needs at such a critical juncture will fall entirely upon the Israeli public,” Golan, a former deputy military chief, said in a statement.
The United States has sent tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel over decades.
In 2016, President Barack Obama, a Democrat, signed an unprecedented security agreement with Israel to give its military $38 billion over 10 years, amounting to $3.8 billion a year. Under the agreement, Israel’s ability to spend part of the funds on Israeli military products was to be phased out and eventually all of the money would be spent on American military industries.
Netanyahu has talked about the need to wean Israel off the aid in the past and has said that the American aid would end at some point.
He told The Economist in January that he wanted to “taper off” U.S. military aid in the next 10 years and that such a change was “in the works.”
Although Trump spoke of ending the aid by the end of 2026, such an abrupt shift would be all but impossible, and Congress will have a large say in what happens. More likely, there could be a wind-down of the current memorandum of understanding if Congress agrees, but it's unclear if that could happen as early as 2027. The current agreement is not set to expire until 2028.
Behind the scenes, there have been discussions about whether the U.S.-Israel arrangement should be restructured in the long term into one that’s more of a partnership of the two countries' defense tech and weapons manufacturing industries.
The 2027 National Defense Authorization Act includes a provision that would expand U.S.-Israeli cooperation on the development of new defense technology and identify opportunities to integrate Israeli defense technology into the U.S. military. The NDAA has not yet been approved by Congress.
But there has been some concern from the Israeli side that such a shift in the relationship could result in the Israelis giving up their intellectual property but still facing constraints imposed by the U.S., according to a person who is familiar with the diplomatic discussions but was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, some critics, including Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, have criticized the provision in the NDAA. Khanna said such integration between the militaries would lead to the U.S. losing sovereignty.
The optics of the aid had also become an issue, according to Trump, who singled out El-Sayed for using it as a talking point.
“The left uses the $4 billion payment — that everybody knows about, it’s no secret — as a signal of unfairness,” Trump said Tuesday on Fox. “And we can’t allow that to happen. I don’t like that, because it’s too easy. It’s almost too easy a target. And Bibi and I have been talking, and we’ve agreed. He was very understanding of it.”
Phasing out direct military and economic aid to Israel has long been a subject of debate in both countries and has gained traction in the last several years. “This has been coming for a long time,” said Schenker.
There are several issues that complicate it, though, not least of which are obligations the U.S. has to Israel under the terms of the Camp David peace accords with Egypt, which require the United States to support Israel and Egypt with security assistance.
In addition, much of the assistance the U.S. provides Israel comes in the form of foreign military financing, or FMF, that gives Israel the money but requires it to spend the money on American-produced weaponry, meaning the funds are plowed back into the U.S. economy.
Unless Israel plans to spend the same amount on purchasing American materiel, U.S. defense contractors may see an impact.
In addition, even if aid were to be suddenly cut off, there would still be many years of previous purchases in the pipeline waiting to be delivered. Most purchases take years from the sale to construction and then delivery.
“The real question for me is whether weapons deliveries will be affected,” Schenker said. “Will Israel be prioritized?”
Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed.
President Donald Trump after speaking in front of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
