Extraordinary moment Trump DEFENDS Saudi crown prince as he’s asked ’embarrassing’

Donald Trump warmly embraced Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House on Tuesday, even defending him over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.

The President said ‘things happen’ in reference to the 2018 murder of the journalist.  

Answering a reporter’s question directed at the crown prince, Trump said: ‘You’re mentioning someone [Khashoggi] that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen. But he [bin Salman] knew nothing about it.’

‘You don’t have to embarrass our guest,’ the President added as he hosted the Saudi leader at the Oval Office. 

America’s relationship with the Gulf state was sent into a tailspin after the assassination of Khashoggi, a fierce critic of the tyrannical kingdom, which executes some 350 people per year, including political dissidents and homosexuals.

Khashoggi, who lived in Virginia and worked as a columnist for the Washington Post, was invited to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he was ambushed by 15 agents, suffocated and hacked to pieces in 2018. His remains have never been found.  

The crown prince, who goes by MBS, has denied any involvement, but US intelligence is said to believe he likely directed the agents to carry it out.

ABC News’s Mary Bruce cited US intelligence when saying to MBS ‘you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist’ and also noted that ‘9/11 families are furious that you’re here in the Oval Office.’ 

‘Why should Americans trust you?’ she asked, with Trump asking, ‘Who are you with?’ throughout her inquiry.

He then labeled Bruce ‘fake news’ before defending MBS. 

Trump blew up at the journalist a second time, even threatening to pull ABC’s license, when she asked a follow-up on the Epstein files. 

‘It’s not the question that I mind, it’s your attitude,’ Trump snapped. ‘I think you’re a terrible reporter,’ he added, calling her an ‘insubordinate.’ 

MBS eventually answered the Khashoggi question by saying that it was ‘really painful to hear anyone losing his life for no real purpose or not in a legal way.’ 

‘And it’s been painful for us in Saudi Arabia. We did all the right steps of investigation, etc., in Saudi Arabia. And we’ve improved our system to be sure that nothing happened like that,’ the crown prince added.

Despite the Khashoggi scandal, Trump has stayed close to the Saudi royal family.

He welcomed MBS to the White House for the first time since the journalist’s killing with a flyover of F-15s and F-35s, a parade of horses, and a pat on the back, which was an apparent breach of royal protocol.

Trump then took the crown prince on a tour around the renovated Rose Garden, showing off the Presidential Hall of Fame, where Joe Biden is depicted as an autopen. 

When the President welcomed the Saudi ruler into the Oval Office, he commended him for being strong on ‘human rights and everything else.’ 

The lovefest continued when Trump asked MBS to name his favorite American leader, referring to himself in the third person. 

The crown prince acknowledged that the Saudis have ‘worked with all presidents.’ 

‘And Trump doesn’t give a fist pump,’ the US leader inserted. ‘I grab that hand. I don’t give a hell where that hand’s been.’ 

‘Remember Biden?’ Trump continued. ‘He travels for 20 hours, he gets out and he gives a fist bump.’ 

When Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022, he didn’t want to appear overly friendly to MBS due to the Khashoggi killing, so he decided to greet the crown prince not with a handshake but a fist bump. That move was met with controversy because it looked even friendlier.  

The Trump family also has substantial private business interests in Saudi Arabia, including a colossal residential skyscraper planned for Jeddah. 

ABC’s Bruce has asked the President about that before inquiring about Khashoggi. 

Trump said of his family’s empire: ‘They do business all over. They’ve done very little with Saudi Arabia.’

In a sign of the deepening ties between the two countries, Trump announced earlier that he would approve the sale of F-35 jets to the Islamic kingdom.

The landmark deal means it becomes the first Middle Eastern country, aside from America’s longstanding ally, Israel, to access the state-of-the-art fighters.

Besides the F-35 deal, a White House official indicated a working relationship with Israel and a US-Saudi partnership are also on the table for discussion.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that Saudi Arabia ‘wants to buy.’

‘We will be doing that. We will be selling F-35 jets,’ Trump said. ‘They’ve been a great ally.’ 

Traditionally, the United States has green-lit the sale of fighter jets to military allies, such as NATO members. 

This move would effectively change the balance of defense and military power in the region.

In response, Israel has asked the president to ‘condition the sale,’ saying they are not opposed to it, but that it needs to be ‘subject to Saudi normalization of Israel.’

If the US-Saudi fighter jet agreement goes through, Israel may ask for security assurances. It takes just minutes for an F-35 plane to fly from Saudi Arabia to Israel.

Analysts say the announcement might not result in the country receiving the fighter jets anytime soon.

‘The devil will kind of be in the details there,’ Andrew Leber, a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has done extensive research on Saudi Arabia, told NBC News.

He noted that a prior deal made with the United Arab Emirates also fell through, saying the same could happen this time around.

Congress could review the potential deal and could stop it from going forward.

The President’s family’s active projects in Saudi Arabia also include plans for a Trump Tower in Riyadh.  

The Trump Organization also announced a new project on the heels of bin Salman’s arrival with their Saudi-linked development partners, Dar Global, opening in the Maldives in 2028.