Trump likes dictators a lot more than journalists

The self-styled king of the free world does not hide his disdain for unruly subjects. President Donald Trump is an open admirer of despots and how they deal with the indignity of being challenged, something that was on open display when he hosted his Saudi Arabian counterpart at the White House.

Trump, hosting the man responsible for killing journalist Jamal Khashoggi, lavished the murderer with praise, denigrated his victim — perhaps he had it coming? — and attacked the press for asking an obvious and legitimate question about state-sponsored butchery.

If it wasn't clear before, he spelled it out on Tuesday: He likes authoritarian leaders a lot more than the reporters they kill.

"He's done a phenomenal job," the U.S. president said of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who, according to U.S. intelligence, ordered the 2018 operation that resulted in Khashoggi being cut to pieces inside the Saudi embassy in Istanbul.

As for the deceased, a U.S. resident, father of four and critic of the Saudi regime who wrote for The Washington Post, Trump told reporters: "You're mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about."

"Things happen," Trump added, while the crown prince fiddled with his hands. "But he knew nothing about it and we can leave it at that. You don't have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that."

But the dictator of Saudi Arabia is not as out of touch as his American ally claims. As a 2021 CIA report details, bin Salman "had absolute control" over the country's "security and intelligence organizations, making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the Crown Prince's authorization." Out of the 15-member assassination squad, seven were members "of Mohammed bin Salman's elite personal protective detail."

He knew. That's something Trump himself conceded was "possible" back in 2018, when, speaking candidly, he admitted that bin Salman could be guilty but that he wouldn't let it spoil a friendship. "They have been a truly spectacular ally in terms of jobs and economic development," he said of the Saudi kingdom. "As president, I have to take a lot of things into consideration."

To be honest, President Joe Biden wasn't all that better when it came to murderers in the Middle East. While he didn't outright embrace Khashoggi's killer, he did fist-bump this strategically significant "pariah" on his first trip to the region.

But Trump's apologism should not be confused with a regrettable compromise of his ethics, rationalized with the cold logic of realpolitik. For this president, it is his own money and power that dictate his foreign relations, not his country's perceived interests.

The Saudi kingdom buys lots of expensive military hardware from the United States, sure; it also holds golf tournaments at Trump's properties, gave $2 billion to his son-in-law and is currently in talks that could "bring a Trump-branded property to one of Saudi Arabia's largest government-owned real estate developments," The New York Times reported just days before Tuesday's White House meeting.

Trump and bin Salman are two rich and powerful men who need not answer to the public; this is a fact for the crown prince, and an aspiration for his American admirer. It's not just that questions from below are difficult to answer — it's that they're annoying, demonstrating a galling lack of respect for the natural hierarchy of power.

How could a reporter at the White House not understand that their job is to listen to the president and repeat back what they hear? "You don't have to embarrass our guest."

Trump does not relish opportunities to defend himself or his policies. Rather, he expresses genuine anger that such opportunities exist. To be asked a pointed question, as the single most powerful man in the world, is to be aggressed upon.

"ABC, your company, your crappy company, is one of the perpetrators," Trump said Tuesday when asked another question about his old friend, Jeffrey Epstein. "I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake, it's so wrong. And we have a great commissioner — chairman — who should look at that."

This is now a regular occurrence: Trump urging Brendan Carr, his pick to head the Federal Communications Commission, to take the free press off the air. There is no principle other than deference to his power, which is not secure enough to handle a late-night comic's jokes. As he said in September: "When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump — that's all they do... They're licensed. They're not allowed to do that."

These threats of brute censorship have not been carried out, but that's not to say they have had no effect. The administration has enjoyed success just by raising the prospect of harsher measures, using its regulatory powers to influence coverage and help secure the installation of political allies at broadcast networks.

The last thing the Trump administration wants is what Jamal Khashoggi called for in his final column: a truly independent media, one"isolated from the influence of nationalist governments spreading hate through propaganda."

After Tuesday's showing, we need not speculate on how Trump would view the killing of a colunist whom "a lot of people didn't like." That doesn't mean that reporters, in America, are soon going to be murdered by their government, but it does speak to the values of the man who leads it — someone who muses about being a dictator and admires those who already are.

But then he told us who he was almost a decade ago, when America's first Black president was still in power. Asked about Russia's Vladimir Putin and his habit of disappearing members of the press, Trump responded that there are worse things than being a guy who kills journalists.

“At least he's a leader," Trump explained, "unlike what we have in this country."

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