President Donald Trump is preparing to offer a warm welcome for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman this week, and the reaction inside his own political base is already turning heated.
The crown prince’s visit on Tuesday will be his first trip back to the White House since U.S. intelligence agencies concluded he approved the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. However, instead of the frosty reception many feel he deserves for the horrific assassination, he is arriving to an administration eager to call him a key ally.
Trump plans to host him at a formal dinner and, according to a person familiar with internal discussions, is weighing a new bilateral security agreement that would commit the U.S. to defend Saudi Arabia if it comes under attack. It would be Trump’s second NATO-style pledge to a Gulf partner, coming after his recent executive order promising similar protection for Qatar.
Trump’s coziness with the crown prince is not new because a few months after Khashoggi’s death, Trump publicly emphasized the Saudi leadership’s denials and called the kingdom “a great ally.” Later, in a recorded conversation with journalist Bob Woodward, he went further, saying, “I saved his ass,” while boasting that he helped shield Mohammed bin Salman from congressional pressure.
The timing of this renewed relationship, though, is stirring frustration within MAGA circles. Supporters who were all in on Trump’s foreign policy say the White House seems too focused on foreign affairs at a moment when economic anxiety is running high for Americans. The anxiety deepened after Democrats scored big wins in recent elections, prompting some of Trump’s allies to suggest that the administration is drifting away from the core themes that built his following.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been the loudest voice in that camp. As Trump hosted Syria’s new leader at the White House last week, she wrote on X that she “would really like to see nonstop meetings at the WH on domestic policy not foreign policy and foreign country’s leaders,” adding that she wanted to see the administration push harder on issues like health insurance costs. Greene says she remains “100 percent America first and only,” but she has also begun questioning whether Trump still is.
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has raised similar alarms on his podcast, warning that Trump risks looking detached from the kitchen-table concerns of his voters if he spends his political capital entertaining foreign leaders while prices and premiums climb at home.
Trump has answered those critics with characteristic force as he told reporters recently that Greene has “lost her way,” and in a social media post late Friday he withdrew his support for her reelection while calling her a “ranting lunatic.”
Outside Washington, the complaints have a different edge. Some of Trump’s supporters are resurfacing his old comments about Mohammed bin Salman and pointing to Saudi Arabia’s history with extremism. One user wrote, “What makes this even more despicable is the fact that Saudi Arabia has never been held accountable for its role in the 911 attacks. For Trump, it’s all about money.”
The Saudis play a big role in oil production, which could affect domestic producers in the US in a negative way.
For Trump, the political calculation seems clear: he believes that major strategic deals in the Gulf will reinforce his image as a global power broker. But for parts of his movement, the sight of the crown prince returning to the White House, this time to applause, not skepticism, lands differently. What they see is a president who once promised to put Americans first, now preparing to celebrate one of the most polarizing figures on the world stage.
