President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of his nation, on Tuesday disregarded questions on bin Salman’s involvement within the 2018 killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi within the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
“Issues occur,” Trump stated when requested about Khashoggi’s killing by Mary Bruce of ABC Information, as he sat subsequent to bin Salman within the Oval Workplace.
Khashoggi, who was a critic of the regime, was additionally a U.S. resident.
Trump known as the ABC Information reporter “faux information” after she requested about Khashoggi, about claims by households of 9/11 victims that Saudi Arabia bankrolled the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults, and concerning the propriety of Trump’s enterprise investing in Saudi Arabia.
“You are mentioning any person that was extraordinarily controversial,” Trump stated of Khashoggi.
“Lots of people did not like that gentleman that you simply’re speaking about, whether or not you want him or did not like him, issues occur,” Trump stated.
Referring to bin Salman, Trump stated, “However he knew nothing about it, and we are able to go away it at that.”
“You do not have to embarrass our friends by asking a query,” Trump stated.
U.S. President Donald Trump (R) speaks throughout a bilateral assembly with Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia (L) within the Oval Workplace of the White Home on November 18, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Win McNamee | Getty Pictures
Bin Salman has denied ordering Khashoggi’s killing.
However in February 2021, a month after then-President Joe Biden took workplace, america’ director of nationwide intelligence launched a report that stated bin Salman permitted an operation to seize or kill Khashoggi.
On Tuesday, bin Salman stated, “You recognize, I really feel painful about, you recognize, households of 9/11 in America. However, you recognize, we’ve got to deal with actuality.”
“Actuality primarily based in CIA paperwork, and primarily based on lots of paperwork that Osama bin Laden used Saudi individuals in that occasion, for one foremost function, is to destroy this [relationship], to destroy the American-Saudi relation,” bin Salman stated.
“It is actually painful to listen to …. anybody that been dropping his life for you recognize, no actual function or … not in a authorized means,” bin Salman stated, referring to Khashoggi.
“And it has been painful for us in Saudi Arabia,” the prince stated. “We did all the fitting steps of investigation … in Saudi Arabia, and we have improved our system to make certain that nothing occurred like that. And it is painful, and it is an enormous mistake, and we’re doing our greatest that this nonetheless would not occur.”
Khashoggi’s widow, in a social media submit directed at Trump earlier than the assembly with bin Salman, wrote, “The homicide of my husband has prompted me to lose all the pieces. There’s unfinished enterprise that continues to be together with: the restoration of my husband’s physique & my rightful compensation as his widow.”
“Very like the households in Israel, I wish to get better the stays of my husband in order that I’ll have an applicable non secular burial ceremony,” Hanan Elatr Khashoggi wrote within the submit on X. “And very like the 11th of September households, I’m looking for monetary compensation for the homicide of my husband.”
Hanan Khashoggi individually instructed CNN in an interview that “it is extremely painful for me” to see Trump welcome bin Salman to the White Home.
The prince’s go to is his first to america since Khashoggi was killed.
