If you thought things would be different during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) Washington visit, the Oval Office proved otherwise. It began as a diplomatic photo op, but turned into a showdown in the White House press room after President Donald Trump lashed out at ABC correspondent Mary Bruce for talking about the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist.
In the course of this standoff, Donald Trump berated Bruce, attacked ABC News as “fake,” defended MBS from U.S. intelligence findings, and even went so far as to suggest that ABC needs to lose its broadcast license. All of this happened as MBS himself sat calmly as the confrontation unfolded.
Honestly, Bruce has asked this question before. This time, she pressed Donald Trump on why Americans should trust MBS, considering that U.S. intelligence has concluded that the Saudi crown prince had approved Khashoggi’s killing.
“You’re a terrible person and a terrible reporter,” he snapped. Trump then accused her of being “psyched up” by ABC. Then he launched a defense of MBS and said that Khashoggi was “extremely controversial,” and that “things happen,” and insisted the crown prince “knew nothing about it,” before the person the question actually took a jab at could even blink. MBS described the killing as “painful” and “a huge mistake,” and he repeated that Saudi Arabia has taken steps to prevent such a tragedy.
President Trump on Jamal Khashoggi: “You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. 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.” pic.twitter.com/iSXu5IVK6B
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 18, 2025
The day also had huge geopolitical announcements, and here’s a roundup for you to peruse –
- Saudi Arabia is raising its planned U.S. investment from $600B to nearly $1 trillion.
- Talk of Saudi Arabia purchasing U.S. AI chips is framed as a massive computing-hungry partnership.
- A potential nuclear technology transfer, which Trump said he “can see” happening.
- Confirmation that the U.S. will sell F-35 fighter jets to the kingdom in a deal similar to the Israel arrangement.
- Discussions about the Abraham Accords, where MBS reiterated that any Saudi normalization with Israel would be a two-state solution.
And then the media storm swirled back into the center frame, and how!
Because right after the Khashoggi exchange, Bruce pressed Donald Trump on the Epstein files. And of course, he grew more agitated, and again called ABC fake news and accused the network of being a “perpetrator” of the Democratic agenda.
ABC News’ Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce asked President Trump why he’s waiting for Congress to send a bill to his desk as opposed to releasing the Epstein files now.
Trump didn’t give a clear answer. https://t.co/obIUq3PINl pic.twitter.com/OLHB4V6acq
— ABC News (@ABC) November 19, 2025
Then Donald Trump did the unthinkable (again), actually said:
“I think the license should be taken away from ABC.”
FCC commissioners do not actually revoke licenses because a president gets angry. But of course, this very random threat to press freedom led to several op-eds. Senator Ed Markey spoke of this comment from Donald Trump and said that it was “un-American” and “authoritarian.” The Washington Post editorial called Trump’s Khashoggi speech “beneath the office of the president.”
All in all, the Trump-MBS partnership seems to be moving forward at full speed.
