Trump Asked About Slain Columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Conference with Saudi Crown Prince: 'Things Happen'

President Donald Trump said “things happen” during a bilateral press conference with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman when asked about the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

An ABC News reporter brought up Khashoggi in a question to Trump and the crown prince. Trump blasted ABC News as “fake news” in his response and said the crown prince knew nothing of Khashoggi’s killing.

https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1990840792949084304

“As far as this gentleman is concerned, he’s done a phenomenal job. You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial,” Trump said. “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

“But he knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guests by asking a question like that,” he added.

The crown prince responded to the question as well.

“About the journalist, it’s really painful to hear, you know, anyone that been losing his life for, you know, no real purpose or not in a legal way, and it’s been painful for us in Saudi Arabia,” he said.

As Breitbart News’s John Hayward noted, the Saudi government said that rogue operatives killed Khashoggi when he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2018. Eleven people were put on trial for Khashoggi’s murder, and several top officials were fired.

The crown prince was cleared of involvement following an investigation.

“We’ve did all the right steps of investigation, etc, in Saudi Arabia, and we’ve improved our system to be sure that nothing happen like that, and it’s painful and it’s a huge mistake, and we are doing our best that this doesn’t happen again,” MBS said Tuesday.

Relations between the two countries were strained under former President Joe Biden, who called the crown prince a “pariah,” as Hayward noted:

President Joe Biden campaigned on turning MBS into a global “pariah” for his suspected role in the Khashoggi assassination, but soon changed his tune as the U.S. economy cratered on his watch. Biden wound up pleading with the Saudis to increase oil production, but Riyadh did not seem inclined to forget his “pariah” bluster. When the Biden administration released an intelligence report on the Khashoggi killing in 2021, it claimed MBS authorized the murder, but stopped short of recommending any action against him. The report also took a light touch with the grisly details of Khashoggi’s killing, such as the inept use of a bone saw to dismember his corpse. … A “reset” in relations with Saudi Arabia has been in the works since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in 2025. Trump received an energetic welcome when he visited Saudi Arabia in May, including promises of $600 billion in U.S. investments from MBS.

During the conference, bin Salman raised his investment pledge from $600 billion close to $1 trillion. Trump and the crown prince held a bilateral lunch following the presser.