Trump defends Saudi crown prince over Khashoggi killing

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/11/18/saudi-prince-trump-visit-white-house

Mohammed arrived to a grand welcome from Trump at the White House on Tuesday, greeted at the South Portico with an Army honor guard of black horses and herald trumpeters, a remarkable turnaround for the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia who had been branded a pariah in 2018 after the CIA concluded that he had approved the killing of Khashoggi.

Trump’s embrace of the crown prince despite U.S. intelligence warnings of his complicity in Khashoggi’s murder recalled a similar moment in Trump’s first term, when he said he took Russian President Vladimir Putin’s vow over a U.S. intelligence assessment that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 elections.

Mohammed’s arrival was filled with more pomp than for any world leader thus far in Trump’s second term. Trump treated Mohammed to a flyover of six F-15 and F-35 fighter jets that streaked across the Washington sky, as large American and Saudi flags fluttered from the black horses of an Army honor guard that walked across the South Lawn in procession. Trump escorted the crown prince into the White House, where the two leaders met in the Oval Office before a working lunch and then a grand dinner.