Former Vice President Joe Biden criticized President Trump for helping Saudi Arabia and its leadership come up with excuses for how dissident Jamal Khashoggi went missing, before the facts are known.
“I’m very worried that the president [Trump] seems to have a love affair with autocrats,” Biden told CBS This Morning in an interview aired Thursday. “And the idea that he’s already making excuses before the facts are known is typical, but it hurts us internationally.”
WATCH: Former Vice President @JoeBiden reveals his doubts about Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince amid the suspected killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
See the full interview, next on @CBSThisMorning at 7 a.m. pic.twitter.com/gmpIwoVaJq
— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 18, 2018
Khashoggi went missing Oct. 2 after entering the consulate in Istanbul to obtain the needed paperwork to marry his Turkish fiancée. He has not been seen since, and Turkish media reports say he was killed in the building by Saudi agents.
The columnist for the Washington Post and Saudi dissident was a permanent resident of the U.S. and wrote in opposition of Saudi leadership and governance.
[Opinion: President Trump’s fallacious equivocation of Kavanaugh and Khashoggi]
Trump has spoken with Saudi King Salman and says he claims to have no knowledge of the whereabouts or condition of Khashoggi, and maintains that Riyadh had nothing to do with the disappearance.
Reports indicate that Khashoggi is dead and was dismembered, and several speculate that the Saudi leadership gave the orders to get rid of Khashoggi’s dissenting voice.
Biden said if it were proven that the Saudis had carried out the kill order on Khashoggi, it would be right for the U.S. to retaliate, which he speculates the Trump administration wouldn’t do.
“I just don’t know why this administration seems to feel the need to coddle autocrats and dictators from Putin and Kim Jong Un to, you know, Duterte,” Biden said.
Biden said that he believes Trump either doesn’t know what he is doing with international relations and policy in these highly controversial areas or has a “convoluted notion” of how the U.S. is able to lead the world.
