Trump defends Saudi crown prince over Khashoggi killing, threatens ABC News in White House meeting – as it happened

Trump lashes out once again at a reporter’s question, calling her a “terrible reporter” and saying he believes ABC News’s broadcasting license should be revoked.

The reporter had asked him why he wouldn’t just release the Epstein files rather than wait for Congress to do it. He says.

I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein.

It’s worth noting that MBS, in comparison, has remained calm and confident in the face of tough questions.

Trump says he “can see” a deal happening to transfer American nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, but doesn’t specify any sort of timeline, adding it’s not urgent.

Trump says he spoke with bin Salman about the Abraham Accords, adding that he believes he got a positive response.

The crown prince adds that while Saudi Arabia wants to be part of the accords, which normalises ties with Israel, it also wants to make sure it secures a clear path for a two-state solution.

He says he wants Israelis and Palestinians “to coexist peacefully” in the region.

Trump says the US would sell F-35 stealth fighter jets to Saudi Arabia in a similar arrangement it has with Israel.

“As far as I’m concerned, I think they are both at a level where they should get top of the line [F-35s],” he says, referring to Saudi and Israel as great allies. Israel and Saudi Arabia have never had formal diplomatic relations but have engaged in covert cooperation on issues such as Iran.

Trump says the United States has reached a defense deal with Saudi Arabia.

As the Trump Organization and a Saudi developer look to open the latest Trump hotel in the Maldives, Trump is asked about a possible conflict of interest for the Trump Organization to do business with Saudi Arabia while he is president. He replies:

I have nothing to do with the family business. I have left, and I’ve devoted 100% of my energy. What my family does is fine. They do business all over.

They’ve done very little with Saudi Arabia actually. I’m sure they could do a lot, and anything they’ve done has been very good.

An ABC reporter then addresses the elephant in the room, asking whether why Americans should trust bin Salman given that US intelligence concluded that he orchestrated the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump blasts ABC News as fake news, before contradicting US intelligence on the Saudi crown prince’s role in Khashoggi death:

You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman [Khashoggi] that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen. But he [bin Salman] knew nothing about it. And we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking something like that.

As I noted earlier, US intelligence concluded in 2021 that bin Salman approved the capture or killing of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. The crown prince denied ordering the operation but acknowledged responsibility as the kingdom’s de facto ruler. Here’s our report on that from the time:

Trump says he is working to approve the sale of advanced US AI chips to Saudi Arabia, signalling a major shift in export policy and deepening tech ties with the kingdom.

“I want to thank you because you’ve agreed to invest $600bn into the United States, and because he’s my friend, he might make it a trillion, but I’m going to have to work on him,” Trump says, referring to bin Salman.

Bin Salman then says in response that Saudi Arabia “believes in the future of America” and is going to increase its pledge to almost $1tn of investment in the United States.

Mohammed bin Salman arrived at the White House to fanfare and a jet flyover moments ago, as he seeks to further rehabilitate his global image after the brutal 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and deepen ties with Washington.

Making his first White House visit in more than seven years, the crown prince was greeted with a lavish display of pomp and ceremony presided over by Donald Trump on the South Lawn, complete with a military honour guard, a cannon salute and a flyover by US warplanes.

Former US negotiator in the Middle East Dennis Ross, who is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, said Trump wants to develop a multifaceted relationship that keeps Saudi Arabia out of China’s sphere.

“President Trump believes all these steps bind the Saudis increasingly to us on a range of issues, ranging from security to the finance-AI-energy nexus. He wants them bound to us on these issues and not China,” Ross told Reuters.

Trump is expected to pressure MBS for Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords and normalise relations with Israel, a major step the Saudis have been reluctant to take without a clear path to Palestinian statehood, a goal that has been forced to the backburner as the region grapples with the Gaza war.

Trump reached Abraham Accords agreements between Israel and Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco and Sudan during his first term in 2020. In recent weeks, Kazakhstan agreed to join. But Trump has always seen Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords as the linchpin to achieving a wider Middle East peace.

“It’s very important to him that they join the Abraham Accords during his term and so he has been hyping up the pressure on that,” a senior White House official told the news agency.

Jonathan Panikoff, former deputy national intelligence officer on the Middle East, said that while Trump will urge bin Salman to move toward normalising ties with Israel, any lack of progress there is unlikely to hinder reaching a new US-Saudi security pact.

“President Trump’s desire for investment into the US, which the crown prince previously promised, could help soften the ground for expanding defense ties even as the president is determined to advance Israeli-Saudi normalisation,” Panikoff, now at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, told Reuters.

A senior official in Mohammed bin Salman’s entourage, who is expected to travel with the crown prince on this first trip back to the US in seven years, has previously been accused by US prosecutors of playing a central role in a conspiracy to infiltrate Twitter and identify users who were posting critically about the Saudi regime.

Bader al-Asaker, who has headed Prince Mohammed’s private office since before he became crown prince, has never been formally charged by the US government for his role in the 2014-15 scheme, but was accused in court in 2022 by a US government lawyer as having led the campaign to find a “mole” who would be able to extract sensitive information from the social media company, which is now known as X.

The infiltration ultimately led to the forced disappearance of at least one Saudi man – Abdulrahman al-Sadhan – who was later sentenced to 20 years in jail for using a satirical and anonymous Twitter account to mock the Riyadh government.

The extraordinary campaign to send spies into the heart of a major US company was seen as a key example of how the Saudi state has been able to use a variety of methods to conduct transnational repression, silencing and intimidating critics of Prince Mohammed’s rule all over the world.

MBS’s visit to the US comes the day after the UN security council endorsed proposals put forward by Donald Trump for a lasting peace in Gaza, including the deployment of an international stabilisation force and a possible path to a sovereign Palestinian state.

The resolution, passed by a vote of 13-0 with abstentions by China and Russia, charted “a new course in the Middle East for Israelis and Palestinians and all the people of the region alike”, the US envoy to the UN, Mike Waltz, told the council chamber.

The inclusion of references to an independent Palestine was the price the US paid for backing from the Arab and Islamic world, including Saudi Arabia, who are expected to provide peacekeepers for an international stabilisation force (ISF).

However, on the eve of the UN vote, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu restated his government’s adamant opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state, raising questions on whether Israel will allow the implementation of the UN-mandated proposals.

After the vote, Hamas rejected what it described as as an imposed “international guardianship mechanism” and insisted it would not disarm.

Supporters of the resolution said it should lead to the immediate lifting of remaining curbs on the flow of aid into Gaza, the creation of an international stabilisation force which would fill the vacuum left by Israeli military withdrawal, and moves towards reconstruction and a possible “pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood”.