This is an adapted excerpt from the Nov. 19 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
On Wednesday, for the second day in a row, Donald Trump gave Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, the kind of welcome the U.S. typically reserves for our closest allies.
First, on Tuesday, Trump greeted the Saudi leader at the White House with a military flyover. Then, he goofed around with him in the Oval Office like they were old friends, even joking creepily about being willing to shake his hand no matter where it had been. Then, the president threw a lavish black-tie White House dinner in the crown prince’s honor.
It’s hard to see how Trump is treating the Saudi leader right now and not think about what he might be getting in return.
The following day, Trump and the crown prince co-hosted a joint Saudi-U.S. investment forum.
It’s hard to see how Trump is treating the Saudi leader right now and not think about what he might be getting in return.
During the Oval Office meeting on Tuesday, the president was asked whether it was “appropriate” that the Trump Organization do business with Saudi Arabia while he is president.
“I have nothing to do with the family business,” Trump replied. “What my family is does is fine. They do business all over. They’ve done very little with Saudi Arabia, actually. I’m sure they could do a lot.”
It appears Trump has quite a definition of “very little” business. I’m sure you remember the $2 billion Saudi Arabia invested in his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s venture capital firm after he left office the first time around. Well, just a few months ago, they doubled down on that, teaming up to buy out the video game company Electronic Arts in a deal that is valued at $55 billion.
Then, there are the two real estate development projects the Trump organization landed in Saudi Arabia last December, just after he won a second term.
There’s also the news from this week about how the Trump family business and a Saudi firm are developing a cryptocurrency-funded 80-villa resort in the Maldives. And there’s a scoop from The New York Times that the Trump Organization is in talks to bring a Trump-branded property to a real estate project the Saudi leader is overseeing in his country — a development that Trump himself toured during an official state visit in May.
Then, there is the news from Wednesday that a Saudi-backed company is teaming up with Trump’s biggest campaign donor, Elon Musk, to make a massive artificial intelligence data center in the Middle Eastern country.
That is what Trump is calling “very little” business.
While Trump and his family and friends are getting all that great business from the Saudi crown prince, the president is offering him something incredibly valuable.
For years now, the Saudi leader has been a pariah, shunned around the world for his despotic rule and human rights abuses. The U.S. has had to deal with him diplomatically, but it has largely done so at arm’s length, using his pariah status as leverage to push for broader diplomatic goals.
But now, Trump isn’t just eagerly welcoming the Saudi leader back onto the global stage; he is using his position as president to launder the country’s reputation. On Tuesday, Trump said he was “very proud” of the job the crown prince has done “in terms of human rights and everything else.” Of all the things Trump could call out, shouting out the Saudi leader for his work on human rights issues is, well, crazy. Back in 2023, the State Department published a report that detailed just how many human rights violations were happening in Saudi Arabia under the crown prince’s rule. It included credible reports of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, life-threatening prison conditions, arbitrary arrests, political prisoners, violence against journalists, religious oppression, political oppression and the lack of free and fair elections. Then, of course, there is Jamal Khashoggi, an American resident and Washington Post journalist who U.S. intelligence agencies concluded was murdered at the direction of the crown prince. Back in 2023, the State Department published a report that detailed just how many human rights violations were happening in Saudi Arabia under the crown prince’s rule. U.S. intelligence agencies believe the leader sent a 15-man team, including seven men from his own personal protective detail, to ambush Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, kill him and dismember his body with a bone saw. To be clear, that’s a leader of a country murdering a journalist because he didn’t like what that journalist was reporting. That used to be more than reason enough for the U.S. to shun a world leader. But when Trump and the crown prince were both asked about Khashoggi’s murder in the Oval Office, the president berated an ABC News reporter and called the company “one of the worst in the business.” Trump said the network was “fake news” and said of Khashoggi, “a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman.” That’s right. Trump responded to a question about an autocrat murdering a journalist by calling the reporter “fake news.” Allison Detzel contributed.
Jen Psaki is the host of "The Briefing with Jen Psaki" airing Tuesdays through Fridays at 9 p.m. EST. She is the former White House press secretary for President Joe Biden.
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