Winners or Losers: Donald Trump’s Cruel Rules of the Game

Trump built his first year on quick, impressive victories, and Netanyahu was a central partner in the vision, but endless wars have eroded the alliance of interests, and Israel is increasingly becoming, in the president’s eyes, a burden rather than an asset. Opinion, Prof. Yossi Shain, N12 Published: 10.06.26, 13:42 | Updated: 11.06.26, 12:31 The promised victory never came, and the bill is arriving in Israel (archive) | Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images, Getty Images

In every election campaign, and also after he was elected president in 2024, Donald Trump shouted to crowds of supporters: “America is back to winning, we win and we’ll keep winning until you get tired of winning.” Trump likes to win, inflate achievements and boast. Losses are not for him. He always aspires to a “real victory” quickly, and if not, he will settle for words, minimizing losses and creating an appearance of success. This week Trump arrived at the Knicks’ final game in New York, he smelled victory there. The New Yorkers will have to wait. This week he also said he would soon announce a “total victory” in Iran. America Wins, his motto, reflects Trump’s approach to life, in business, politics, media and international relations. Trump distinguishes between “winners and losers” as moral categories of good and evil. For him, victories are the capitalist ethos and the American dream. He despises “losers” who sold America “cheaply.” He despises Obama, and Biden and Kamala, and the “crying left,” and the crying, victimized public, and decadent Europe, and the international “losers” under a humanitarian guise, and anyone who does not show “respect” for the great winner. Zelensky was also about to become a loser if he did not show respect.

Quick victory became the highlight of Trump’s first year in the White House in his second term. The peak of the victories, in his view, was the closing of the borders to immigrants, the American bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, and the abduction of President Maduro in Venezuela. Trump also claimed major victories in tariff policy, in the release of Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity, and in “making eight peace agreements” around the world, as the president put it. “We made historic agreements that weren’t achieved for 3,000 years,” Trump said about the peace force in Gaza.

For Trump, winning as an empire means subjugating other countries and humiliating weak leaders, President Macron in France and Keir Starmer in England became objects of ridicule for him. Winning means receiving respect. And when faced with determined leaders who are not afraid, Trump will usually take a step back. He does not want long battles, so former enemies can quickly become friends. There are no sentiments: If you cannot beat them, join them.

Trump’s alliance with Israel rests on the idea of winning. Liberal Jews in the United States are “weaklings,” while Israel is a victorious power, Trump believed. After the fiasco of October 7, Israel needed a great victorious patron, and Trump took the job of protecting us and bringing more victories and credit to himself. Yes, he always likes to appropriate achievements that are not his, as we saw in the war in June 2025.

At the beginning of his second term, Netanyahu became a partner in the vision of victories. Netanyahu would become a victorious vassal and do everything the president told him on the way to the “total victory.” The commitment to Israel and the release of the hostages gave Trump the status of “Cyrus” among all Jews. Trump also believed the IDF had the ability to work “miracles” with Israel’s outstanding pilots and Mossad intelligence, as in the pager explosion operation. Therefore, winning in cooperation with Israel and Netanyahu, the “prime minister of war,” is a good formula for boosting the president’s standing.

The language of “winning” quickly also appealed to Trump in his dealings with the Iranian leadership. The Mossad and Israel’s pilots would eliminate the leadership and lead to regime change. Trump, who told protesters in Tehran that he was coming, would cut a huge and quick historical victory ribbon, “five, six weeks maximum,” the president said.

Trump’s wars were always presented by the secretary of war, Hegseth, as different from the historical American defeatism of “never ending wars.” The first days in the war of the Lion’s Roar were indeed intoxicating; the empire struck the Iranians alongside the victorious partner from Jerusalem, and according to Trump it was only a matter of time until “total surrender” and a changed world order. All the “loser” presidents in the United States, led by Obama, did not dismantle Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Trump was supposed to do that.

But war always brings surprises. The blockage in the Strait of Hormuz, and especially the downing of the American plane and the rescue of two pilots in a heroic operation, signaled to Trump that everything could collapse in an instant. Trump fears the image of a loser and is now changing course. “Maybe Netanyahu is not a winner,” some of his aides said. And maybe it is possible to produce an agreement that will create the appearance of a great victory?

Trump now fears that Netanyahu is dragging out endless wars, entangling himself and entangling Trump, and gradually drifting away. Could Netanyahu have become a burden that needs to be restrained? “Israel is hated all over the world,” the president said in a shouting match with Netanyahu. “In the end, you will be left alone.”

Netanyahu still believes in force, but is becoming hated in the United States. “Without me,” Trump said, “Israel would not exist.” Trump is not one to dwell on the Holocaust and antisemitism. It is not good for him to present Israel as a victim, to make it a loser. His friends in the MAGA movement are explaining to him that Netanyahu is dragging him into defeats at home, and the message is sinking in.

Are we before a major change and an imposed retreat in the words of “total victory”? Will Trump act to settle the matter because of Iranian mistakes like the downing of the helicopter? Will we find a quick way out that gives Trump a victory ticket? Israel has no way today to give Trump a victory ticket. We are trapped.

Prof. Yossi Shain is an expert in political science and international relations, and served as head of the School of Political Science at Tel Aviv University. Faculty member at Georgetown University in Washington, DC

Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump