President Trump on Thursday shrugged off fears that he was sending a poor message to world leaders by standing with Saudi Arabia, after the CIA reportedly found a link between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“No, not at all,” Trump said in Florida when asked if he was sending a message that the U.S. will look the other way. He followed that up by saying there’s no conclusive evidence of the crown prince’s involvement, and that Saudi Arabia is an important strategic partner.
“Saudi Arabia has been a longtime strategic partner,” he said. “They’re investing hundreds of billions of dollars in our country. I mean hundreds of billions. They’re keeping the oil prices low,” Trump said during an impromptu press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. “The fact is that Saudi Arabia’s tremendously helpful in the Middle East. If we didn’t have Saudi Arabia, we wouldn’t have a big base.”
Trump also pushed back on reports that the CIA found with “high confidence” that the crown prince was involved in the plot to kill Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and Saudi royal court critic who disappeared on Oct. 2 after visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The president did describe Khashoggi’s death as “an atrocity,” adding that “maybe the world should be held accountable because the world is a vicious place.”
“They didn’t conclude. They did not come to a conclusion. They have feelings certain ways but they didn’t — I have the report,” Trump said. “I don’t know if anybody is going to be able to conclude that the crown prince did it. But I will say this. I don’t know. I don’t know. But whether he did or whether he didn’t, he denies it vehemently. His father denies it, the king, vehemently.”
Trump has received bipartisan criticism for his approach to the Saudi Arabia-Khashoggi controversy on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a consistent ally of the president’s, has advocated for the imposition of “serious sanctions” against the Saudi kingdom in response to Khashoggi’s murder.
