U.S. President Donald Trump met with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House on Monday, during which the prince described the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi as a “huge mistake.”
Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump called Khashoggi “extremely controversial” and 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 happened. But he knew nothing about it,” referring to the crown prince.
Mohammed, who is also Saudi Arabia’s prime minister, said the murder, carried out by Saudi agents in Istanbul, Turkey, was “painful and it’s a huge mistake, and we are doing our best that this doesn’t happen again.”
Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist critical of the Saudi leadership, was killed and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in 2018, an act that triggered a brief diplomatic crisis.
U.S. media reported that Trump rebuked a journalist who raised questions about the Khashoggi case, telling them, “You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”
During the meeting, Trump praised Prince Mohammed as a “very good friend” and commended him on his work in “human rights, and everything else.”