Is Biden trying to be relevant or insulting during his welcoming with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman?
Joe Biden gave Saudi Arabia’s crown prince a fist-bump Friday as he arrived at a royal palace for meetings, moments after the president shook hands with other Saudi officials at a nearby airport.
The crown prince, widely known as MBS, didn’t seem to mind the informal but still cordial greeting and he and Biden were seen smiling while walking together through the palace.
It wasn’t a gaurantee, that Biden would shake MBS’s hand, since the crown prince ordered the operation that killed Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
The visit was to calm the waters between Biden and the Saudi prince amid record-high gas prices. This came after the president initially sought to sideline MBS over the 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
But the 36-year-old appeared unfazed by Biden’s extended fist and gladly reciprocated the bump while greeting him at the palace entrance in Jeddah.
Later after their meeting, President Biden said that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, denied having any role in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in a much-anticipated face-to-face meeting between the two leaders.
“With respect to the murder of Khashoggi,” Biden told reporters during hastily scheduled remarks in the city of Jeddah. “I raised it at the top of the meeting, making clear what I thought of it at the time, and what I think of it now.”
Biden went on to say, “He basically said that he was not personally responsible for it. I indicated I thought he was. He said he was not personally responsible for it and he took action against those who were responsible.”
There is no proof to know if this is the true conversation between Biden and MBS, since all press corps were removed from the room. The White House also didn’t arrange for boom mics to be present for Biden’s opening remarks to MBS, meaning his words were inaudible before the meeting was closed to the press.
Portnoy, a leader in arguing against Biden-era press access restrictions, added in another tweet that “reporters were told by the White House that none of the boom mics pool technicians use to record the president’s voice would be permitted inside the meeting with MBS. As a result, the recordings contain no discernible audio of what they discussed.”
“Jamal Khashoggi, will you apologize to his family?” NBC reporter Peter Alexander shouted at MBS, who was seated opposite Biden along a long table at a royal palace in the Saudi city of Jeddah.
The crown prince smirked and Alexander tweeted that “a Saudi aide grabbed my arm tightly” after he asked the question, which went unanswered as reporters were ushered out.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan sidestepped a reporter’s question about criticism of the trip from Khashoggi’s fiancee, including her request for information about the location of his remains. Turkish officials say his body was dismembered using a bonesaw.
“He is going to have a conversation on fundamental issues of human rights in Saudi Arabia and the specifics of that. I’m not gonna go beyond where he was yesterday,” Sullivan said on Air Force One en route to Jeddah.
Biden on Thursday also ducked a press conference question about Khashoggi.
“With regard to the question you asked me, my views on Khashoggi have, they’ve been absolutely, positively clear. And I have never been quiet about talking about human rights,” Biden said.