Donald Trump rolls out red carpet for Saudi Crown Prince, defends him over Khashoggi killing

President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of Washington Post opinion columnist Jamal Khashoggi, saying “things happen” and that he did not hold the Saudi leader responsible for the 2018 murder despite a US intelligence report assessing the opposite.

Mr Trump’s dismissive language offered the highest-level confirmation yet that Mohammed will face few consequences for the killing, as the Crown Prince makes his first visit to Washington since Khashoggi was dismembered in a Saudi consulate in Turkey.

“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 (Mohammed) knew nothing about it,” Mr Trump said in response to a question about Khashoggi.

“And we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”

Mohammed arrived to a grand welcome from Mr Trump at the White House on Tuesday (local time), greeted at the South Portico with an honor guard of black horses and herald trumpeters, a remarkable turnaround for the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia who had been branded a pariah in 2018 after the CIA concluded that he had approved the killing of Khashoggi.

“(We) at The Washington Post will continue to remind you that one of our colleagues in the not-so-distant past was murdered,” Jason Rezaian, The Washington Post’s director of press freedom initiatives, told NPR on Tuesday.

“That’s not something we can just wipe under the rug or forget about.”

Mr Trump offered a chummy welcome to Mohammed in the Oval Office, grasping his hand and wrist while mocking former president Joe Biden for offering a fist bump to the Crown Prince in 2022 because he did not want to shake hands with a man whose human rights record had been blasted by the US intelligence community.

“Trump doesn’t give a fist pump. I grab that hand. I don’t give a hell where that hand’s been,” Mr Trump said, calling the Crown Prince “one of the most respected people in the world.”

Mr Trump called the inquiry about Khashoggi from ABC News reporter Mary Bruce a “horrible, insubordinate and just a terrible question,” adding that “I think the license should be taken away from ABC, because your news is so fake and it’s so wrong.”

His anger came minutes after he praised his and Mohammed’s openness and willingness to answer any and every question.

Mohammed denied responsibility for Khashoggi’s killing, saying that it was “painful to hear” about anyone losing his life for “no real purpose.”

“We’ve did all the right steps of investigation, et cetera, in Saudi Arabia, and we’ve improved our system to be sure that nothing happened like that,” he said. “And it’s painful and it’s a huge mistake. And we are doing our best that this doesn’t happen again.”

It was not the first time that Mr Trump has appeared to accept the word of a foreign leader over the assessments of his own intelligence community.

A 2018 meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki ended with Mr Trump’s dismissal of allegation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, an episode so mortifying to his Russia adviser at the time, Fiona Hill, that she later said she considered faking a seizure to derail the news conference where he was speaking.

Khashoggi, a sharp and persistent critic of Saudi leaders, was seeking official documents ahead of his marriage from the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul when he was killed there in 2018.

Mohammed’s arrival, filled with more pomp than for any world leader thus far in Mr Trump’s second term, was a measure of the US President’s affection for the Saudi Prince and his rehabilitation following the killing.

Mr Trump treated Mohammed to a flyover of six F-15 and F-35 fighter jets that streaked across the Washington sky, as large US and Saudi flags fluttered from the black horses of an Army honor guard that walked across the South Lawn in procession.

Mr Trump escorted the Crown Prince into the White House, where the two leaders met in the Oval Office before a working lunch and then a grand dinner.

Mr Trump said that his bond with Mohammed was so tight that the leaders call each other at all hours of the day, seeming to marvel at the crown prince’s willingness to take his phone calls no matter the time.

“We talk at night. We can talk, I can call him almost any time,” Mr Trump said. “He goes, ‘Hi, how are you doing.’ It’s like, the craziest times.”

The leaders are expected to sign deals ranging from weapons sales to agreements around artificial intelligence and critical minerals, according to White House officials.

Mohammed said Tuesday that he would boost Saudi investments in the United States from a previously announced $600 billion to “almost $1 trillion,” including in artificial intelligence and rare earth materials.

And Mr Trump said he would continue to press the issue of Saudi normalisation with Israel, an issue that the Saudi leader said he valued, though he indicated Tuesday that his country still wasn’t ready to sign on.

Mohammed increased the kingdom’s pledged investment from $600 billion to 1 trillion during the Oval Office meeting Tuesday.

He said the investments would be in artificial intelligence and rare earth materials “that will create a lot of investment opportunities.” Mr Trump thanked the Crown Prince.

“We’re doing numbers that nobody’s ever done. And in all fairness, if you didn’t see potential in the U.S., you wouldn’t be doing that,” he told Mohammed.

Saudi Arabia is eager to deepen defense cooperation with the United States, a critical prerequisite for the kingdom’s ambitious plans to diversify its economy.

Mr Trump told reporters he would approve the sale of F-35s - some of the world’s most advanced aircraft - to the kingdom, though he indicated on Tuesday that a different issue, US support for a Saudi nuclear energy program, wasn’t ready yet.

Some Republican lawmakers have expressed concern over the potential F-35 sale, fearful it could upend the military balance in the Middle East and anger Israel. There are also concerns that if transferred to Saudi Arabia, the F-35 technology could be easier for China to steal, as the kingdom has a close relationship with Beijing.

Mohammed is also carrying a letter from Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, according to Ali Shihabi, a Saudi commentator close to the kingdom’s leadership, a possible signal of a renewed attempt at diplomacy by Tehran.

Mr Shihabi did not have information on the content of the letter. Mr Trump communicated with Iranian leadership through written letters ahead of launching talks over Iran’s nuclear program earlier this year.

Mr Trump has long embraced Riyadh, making Saudi Arabia his first foreign destination during his first term and visiting Riyadh again as the first major trip of his second, apart from a brief visit to Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral.

Mr Shihabi said the visit Tuesday “is cementing a very close relationship that has developed with this administration and actually in the last year of the Biden administration also.”

Mr Shihabi added that the fact US-Saudi ties have endured numerous serious crises demonstrates that there is “a fundamental strategic logic to this relationship that has sustained it over 80 years.”

The Tuesday visit is also a chance for Mr Trump to repay the over-the-top reception he was given in Riyadh when he visited in May. The Saudi Air Force flew alongside Air Force One as he arrived. After he landed, an honor guard with golden swords greeted him, and a procession of Arabian horses flanked his motorcade.

“We’re more than meeting,” Mr Trump told reporters on Friday as he flew to Florida for the weekend. “We’re honouring Saudi Arabia, the Crown Prince.”

During the early years of his rise to power, Mohammed, 40, launched harsh crackdowns on domestic rivals and spearheaded ill-fated interventions in Yemen and Qatar that ultimately backfired.

Since then, Mohammed has tightened his grip on power within Saudi Arabia but has also attempted to cast himself as a peacemaker on the global stage, eager to cultivate the regional stability critical to his ambitious plans to transform the Saudi economy.

Determined to open Saudi Arabia up to the outside world, Mohammed also sidelined powerful clerics in the country as he reversed a ban on female drivers and integrated more Saudi women into the workforce.

Before the killing of Khashoggi, Mohammed enjoyed glowing media coverage and had embarked on a tour of the US, pitching investments in the kingdom to tech leaders, Hollywood producers and billionaire investors.

After Khashoggi’s killing and a US intelligence assessment that determined the Crown Prince was responsible, Mohammed was branded a pariah.

The isolation didn’t last long. While Mr Biden vowed to treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” during his 2020 campaign, he eventually turned to Mohammed to help lower global oil prices after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and later worked closely with the Saudis on Gaza.

Mr Biden greeted Mohammed with a fist bump in 2022 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, an encounter that drew criticism from human rights activists.

The Biden Administration drew close to a deal with the Saudis to normalise their relations with Israel in exchange for a bolstered defense pact with Washington, following a model pioneered in the first Trump term with the Abraham Accords.

But the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 - followed by Israel’s ferocious retaliation against Gaza - derailed that effort.

Mr Trump remains eager to broker a deal that would pull Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, but that goal remains remote for now. Saudi officials have said there must be a clear path to a Palestinian state before they can attempt to sell normalisation with Israel to the kingdom’s public.

“We want to be part of the Abraham Accord, but we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path of [a] two-state solution. Today we have a healthy discussion,” Mohammed told reporters in the Oval Office.

“We want peace for the Israelis. We want peace for the Palestinians. We want them to coexist, peacefully in the region. And we will do our best to reach that deal.”

Later Tuesday, Mohammed will return for an elaborate dinner, with tech CEOs and other business luminaries expected to attend, the senior administration official said.

On Wednesday, there will be a US-Saudi investment summit held at the Kennedy Center, an effort to build business ties between Washington and Riyadh that goes beyond the investments announced during Mr Trump’s May trip to the Middle East.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will speak at the Wednesday conference, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private agenda, as Saudi leaders seek deeper cooperation on artificial intelligence technology and advanced chips.

- - -

Cat Zakrzewski contributed to this report.

© 2025 , The Washington Post