- Trump
angrily rebuked reporter over Saudi Crown Prince questions. - Incident
occurred during MBS’s White House visit press conference. - Trump
demanded reporter stop embarrassing Saudi Arabia’s guest.
When correspondent Mary Bruce questioned the Saudi monarch
about why Americans should trust him given his involvement in Kashoggi’s death
and whether his family should have business in the oil-rich country while he
was president, Trump aggressively cut her off and demanded to know who her
employer was. He yelled at her, “Fake News,” after she responded that
she was employed by ABC. One of the worst false news outlets in the industry is
ABC.
He vehemently denied any involvement in his own real estate
and hotel company’s numerous collaborations with Saudi developers, asserting
that his sons, who currently manage the business, have “done very little
with Saudi Arabia.”
At that point, the crown prince often referred to by his
initials MBS jumped in and calmly answered the ABC News journalist’s question,
saying that he felt “painful” about the impact of the September 11,
2001 attacks on the families of those who died but that it was important to
“focus on reality.”
He went on to say that Osama bin Laden, the commander of Al
Qaeda and a wealthy Saudi construction heir, had “used Saudi people”
to carry out the terror attacks with the intention of ruining ties between the
United States and Saudi Arabia.
MBS went on to discuss the journalist whose death he had ordered,
saying that hearing about
“anyone … losing his life … for no real
purpose or not in a legal way”
had also been “really painful.”
“And it’s been painful for us in Saudi Arabia. We’ve did
all the right steps of investigation, etc, in Saudi Arabia, and we’ve improved
our system to be sure that nothing happened like that, and it’s painful and
it’s a huge mistake, and we are doing our best that this doesn’t happen again,”
he said.
How did journalists and press freedom groups respond to the
Oval Office exchange?
Press freedom groups and intelligencers explosively
condemned the Oval Office battle where Donald Trump yelled at a journalist over
questions about Saudi issues. The Associated Press (AP) called the incident
part of a broader pattern of retribution against independent journalism,
emphasizing that barring or berating journalists undermines the public’s right
to accurate, intrepid news and violates First Amendment protections.
The White House Reporters’ Association (WHCA) blamed the
administration for trying to control and discipline news associations grounded
on editorial choices, calling the behavior “ outrageous ” and “ inferior.
”
Several press freedom lawyers echoed these enterprises,
stressing that government officers should be subordinated to tough questions to
insure responsibility. They advised that similar combative responses to
journalism damage popular morals and translucency.
