LONDON: Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed has said he would “love to work” with US President Donald Trump on cutting aid to Israel.

Ahead of the midterm elections that saw Democrat El-Sayed win his race in Michigan to become the first Muslim US senator, Trump announced plans to cut $4 billion in aid to Israel by the end of the year.

When asked why on “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday morning, the president responded: “They don’t need it.”

He added: “Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like El-Sayed when they don’t need it?”

El-Sayed responded positively to the announcement, despite the insult, following his victory on Wednesday.

“I don’t think we should be continuing to subsidize a foreign military that has done the worst things with our money,” he said on Thursday.

“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.”

Trump frequently attacked El-Sayed on the campaign trail, saying he would need to pass through a metal detector while entering the US Capitol building.

“I’m here to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator,” Trump said.

El-Sayed, who will be sworn in next year, said there is a real issue around conflating Judaism with Israel, and it is important to make the distinction.

“We have to separate between Judaism and the Jewish people, and Israel and its actions. We have to,” he said.

“We’ve broken our own principles when it comes to Israel time and again. And I want to have a conversation; I’ll stop here, where a Palestinian child and a Jewish-Israeli child growing up in the Holy Land can look forward at their life and say, ‘My life is not going to be curtailed by somebody’s violence.’”