{"id":27603,"date":"2025-11-20T14:29:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T14:29:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/?p=27603"},"modified":"2025-11-20T14:29:39","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T14:29:39","slug":"trump-defends-saudi-mbs-murder-of-journalist-kashoggi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/?p=27603","title":{"rendered":"Trump Defends Saudi MBS&#8217; Murder of Journalist, Kashoggi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">US President Donald Trump has sparked controversy by defending Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, claiming MBS &#8220;knew nothing&#8221; about it, despite CIA findings to the contrary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trump described Khashoggi as &#8220;extremely controversial&#8221; and stated, &#8220;Whether you like him or didn&#8217;t like him, things happen, but [MBS] knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Saudi crown prince, who has consolidated power and is now Saudi Arabia&#8217;s de facto ruler, expressed regret over Khashoggi&#8217;s death, calling it &#8220;painful and a huge mistake&#8221;. He also defended Saudi Arabia&#8217;s investigation into the murder, saying they &#8220;did all the right steps&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Khashoggi&#8217;s widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, criticized Trump&#8217;s comments, stating that her husband&#8217;s opinions didn&#8217;t justify his assassination. &#8220;This is not justification to murder him. Jamal  was  a good, transparent, and brave man,&#8221; she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video height=\"1280\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 720 \/ 1280;\" width=\"720\" controls src=\"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1001167064.mp4\"><\/video><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US President Donald Trump has sparked controversy by defending Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, claiming MBS &#8220;knew nothing&#8221; about it, despite CIA findings to the contrary. Trump described Khashoggi as &#8220;extremely controversial&#8221; and stated, &#8220;Whether you like him or didn&#8217;t like him, things happen, but [MBS] knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that.&#8221; The Saudi crown prince, who has consolidated power and is now Saudi Arabia&#8217;s de facto ruler, expressed regret over Khashoggi&#8217;s death, calling it &#8220;painful and a huge mistake&#8221;. He also defended Saudi Arabia&#8217;s investigation into the murder, saying they &#8220;did all the right steps&#8221;. Khashoggi&#8217;s widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, criticized Trump&#8217;s comments, stating that her husband&#8217;s opinions didn&#8217;t justify his assassination. &#8220;This is not justification to murder him. Jamal was a good, transparent, and brave man,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diplomacy-and-foreign-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27606,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27603\/revisions\/27606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}