Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) slammed President Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia on Sunday, saying that the trip rewarded the dictatorship responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
When asked on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos if Biden should have made the visit, Sanders told host Martha Raddatz, “No, I don’t think so.”
“You have a leader of the country who was involved in the murder of a Washington Post journalist. I don’t think that type of government should be rewarded with a visit by the president of the United States,” Sanders said.
The Vermont senator said that while he believes Biden’s trip was an effort to lower recent record-high gasoline prices in the U.S., he would’ve preferred that the administration threaten a windfall profit tax on oil companies that are “ripping off the American people” rather than negotiate with the Saudi monarchy.
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“Look, you got a family that is worth $100 billion, which questions democracy, which treats women as third-class citizens, which murderers and imprisons its opponents,” Sanders said of the Saudi royal family.
“If this country believes in anything, we believe in human rights, we believe in democracy, and I just don’t believe that we should be maintaining a warm relationship with a dictatorship like that,” Sanders added.
Biden greeted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a fist bump on Friday during his first trip to the Middle East as president. He said on Friday that the meeting with the Saudi leader, accused of orchestrating the murder of Khashoggi at a Saudi Consulate in Turkey, “accomplished some significant business.” The Biden administration hopes the visit leads the Saudi government to boost its oil output.
The controversial trip prompted blowback from Democrats before and after the fist bump.
“If ever we needed a visual reminder of the continuing grip oil-rich autocrats have on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, we got it today,” tweeted Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Friday. “One fist bump is worth a thousand words.”
Schiff had previously said in June that he “wouldn’t go” to Saudi Arabia as president and “wouldn’t shake” Salman’s hand. He also called for the crown prince to be “shunned” by world leaders.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) told Fox News before the trip earlier this month that the U.S. shouldn’t be “begging Saudi Arabia for oil” while the U.S. continues to export oil to countries such as China, and while Saudi Arabia engages in a “brutal war in Yemen” and denies involvement in Khashoggi’s murder.
“I don’t think that he should go meet with MBS until MBS takes some accountability for the murder of the American journalist and until they bring the war in Yemen to an end,” Khanna said.
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Biden said Friday that he told the crown prince that he held him responsible for Khashoggi’s murder. A Saudi official present at the meeting gave a different account of the meeting.
Biden had stated as a presidential candidate that he would make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” on the world stage for the murder of Khashoggi.
