In Defending Mohammed bin Salman, Trump Sinks to a New Low

“You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that,” Trump chided Bruce, as if she were pointing out that Bin Salman had food in his beard, rather than asking him about a high-profile murder. Trump then accused ABC of being “fake news. One of the worst in the business.” He called out Bruce for asking a “horrible, insubordinate and just plain terrible question.” He called her a “terrible person.” Later that evening, he demanded that ABC lose its broadcast license.

Surprisingly, before launching into denouncing an American journalist, Trump praised Bin Salman’s “incredible record” on human rights. Certainly, the Saudi human rights record is “incredible,” but not in a positive way: Saudi Arabia has incarcerated around 5,000 political prisoners, and Human Rights Watch estimates that it executed 241 people in the first seven months of 2025, many for political crimes. Even more astonishing, Trump then lashed out at Bruce, saying, “You’re talking about someone. [Khashoggi] it was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like this gentleman you’re talking about. Whether you like it or not, things happen.

Spoken like a real gangster. You question the boss, you end up sleeping with the fish. Things happen, you know what I mean? If you don’t respect Don, you will pay the price. You wanna stay in one piece, you learn to kiss the ring. His face contorted into his trademark scowl, Trump looked as if he hoped the journalists in front of him would meet the same horrific fate that befell Jamal Khashoggi.

All of this is consistent with Trump’s increasingly senescent and barking attacks on journalists who are not sufficiently subservient to his liking. Consider the bizarre moment on Air Force One on November 14 when Trump responded to Bloomberg » responded to journalist Catherine Lucey’s questions about the Epstein files by shouting at her: “Silence, quiet pig”, then brandishing a finger in his face.

Imagine what kind of day the White House press corps, not to mention the Republican Congress and its ecosystem of far-right social media warriors, would have had if an aging, gaffe-prone Joe Biden had made a similar remark. However, in the Trump era, where a new outrage occurs every few minutes, the story has simply sunk into the muck.

Sometimes Trump makes outrageous statements simply to blast the white noise or to poke whatever bear he chooses to torment that day. Witness his fierce demand on November 20, largely ignored by the US media, that Democratic lawmakers who urged military personnel not to obey illegal orders should be arrested, imprisoned and possibly executed.

But his recent attacks on journalists and the concept of a free and curious press do not fit that mold. In the broader context of his flattering meeting with bin Salman at the White House – a meeting dedicated to finalizing Saudi purchases of billions of dollars of high-end American weapons, and likely to facilitate the Trump family’s opening of lucrative businesses in the kingdom – Trump’s noxious interjections about Khashoggi seemed entirely from the heart. As Bruce asked Bin Salman the million-dollar question, Trump was incandescent with anger that reporters would have the temerity to question his wealthy, bottomless “guest.” In Trumplandia, such concern for human rights, let alone the concept of press freedom – which gives journalists the ability to report on corruption without ending up cut into small pieces – is simply “insubordinate.”

Every day I try to calculate what is the most un-American thing that the criminal Trump has done during his second term in the White House. The competition is tough there, but his statements on Khashoggi’s murder and his growing efforts to bulldoze the First Amendment surely rank high on that list.