Credit : Win McNamee/Getty
US President Donald Trump says Saudi Arabia’s crown prince knew nothing about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, which is an incredible thing to say with a straight face. It’s like insisting the sun had nothing to do with daylight. And he didn’t whisper it in some hallway. He said it in the Oval Office. The room where people pretend to be serious even when they’re obviously not.
He smiled while saying it. MBS smiled too. When powerful men smile at the same time, you know something is being buried under the carpet. And since the carpet was probably made in a factory both countries invested in, nobody wants to lift it.
Trump went even further. He said “a lot of people didn’t like” Khashoggi. That’s a bold thing to say about a man who was murdered, dismembered, and dissolved like someone’s dark idea of a TikTok life hack gone wrong. When Trump says people didn’t like him, you can hear the real message humming underneath. The message that says, “Relax, it’s fine, he annoyed the wrong guys.”
To summarize, MBS called the killing a “huge mistake,” the kind of phrase you use when you lock your keys in the car. He delivers it with the calm of someone who knows almost nobody in that room will challenge him. Trump definitely won’t. Because Trump has the same fondness for MBS that a mall Santa has for overtime pay. The kind that ignores ethics and jumps straight to the part where someone hands you a giant check.
And of course, they talked business. One trillion dollars of Saudi investment. A number so large it should come with air traffic control. And Trump perked up at that like a kid hearing the ice cream truck. Never mind the murder. Never mind the intelligence report from his own country that pointed directly at MBS. America loves a full shopping cart. Morality can wait until the receipts stop printing.
A White House reporter said Trump seemed genuinely fond of the crown prince. That’s one way to phrase it. It looked like two guys on a first date who already know they’re going home together. The laughter, the warm body language, the mutual flattery. If someone dimmed the lights, it would’ve become a telenovela.
Later today Cristiano Ronaldo will show up. Yes, because what this diplomatic situation really needed was a football cameo. At this point they’re treating geopolitics the way Netflix treats casting, just throw in a recognizable face and hope nobody asks about the plot.
But this moment isn’t just about Trump and MBS. It’s about the world’s oldest handshake. Power shaking hands with money, pretending they’re introducing each other for the first time. It’s about the way every major government reacts when confronted with something horrifying from a country that buys a lot of weapons. There’s this quiet global tradition of selective amnesia. Leaders suddenly start blinking like they’re trying to reboot.
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America criticizes human rights violations unless the violator is rich enough to sponsor two military bases and a tech summit. Europe gives inspiring speeches unless the oil contracts are still wet. And everybody talks about moral leadership until someone whispers “30-year energy deal” and suddenly morality is an optional add-on.
Khashoggi became another name on the long list of people whose deaths were largely followed by polite handshakes and awkward press releases. The kind where leaders say they’re “deeply concerned” in the same tone you’d use to ask someone to lower their music. Concern is cheap. Concern fits in a press statement without causing stock market turbulence.
Meanwhile, the intelligence report from 2021 sits around like an unwanted guest at a party. Everybody knows it’s accurate. Nobody wants to talk about it. It’s the real version of “we all know what happened; let’s move on.” And moving on is exactly what they’re doing. If moving on had an Olympics, these guys would break the world record.
The everyday show of global politics always finds a way to turn murder into a scheduling inconvenience. As long as the checks clear, the contracts get signed, and the photos look good, the show continues. The story is never the crime. The story is the narrative management around the crime.
And Trump excels at narrative management. He can talk about a dismemberment like he’s discussing a parking violation. He shifts tones with such confidence you’d think he invented moral elasticity. One moment he’s praising dictators. The next he’s claiming to be the champion of American values. It’s political yoga. And he’s way more flexible than anyone expected for a man who eats like stress is a food group.
The funniest part is watching people defend all this with a straight face. They’ll explain geopolitics like it’s some delicate ballet where Americans and we of the rest of the world must “respect cultural differences.” As if murder is a cultural difference. As if dissolving journalists is part of a heritage festival. Nobody wants to admit the obvious. It’s not cultural. It’s financial. It always has been financial.
The US and Saudi Arabia are like that couple that fights publicly but still files their taxes jointly. They pretend to have boundaries, but they share too many assets to ever break up.
And now there’s Ronaldo. Who shows up like the surprise side character the writers inserted for ratings. He won’t comment on Khashoggi. He’ll smile, pose, maybe say something inspirational about sports. Every dictatorship eventually discovers football is cheaper than reforms. A superstar is easier to manage than democracy. You don’t need elections when you have a hat-trick.
Ronaldo has probably been briefed already. Smile. Shake hands. Don’t say “Khashoggi.” Don’t say “intelligence report.” If someone asks, transition to something vague like “I believe in peace.” Footballers are experts at this. When they don’t want to answer, they switch to gratitude mode.
“I’m just happy to be here.” Works every time.
The whole thing feels like a reboot of geopolitics with worse writing but bigger explosions. You have a president contradicting his own intelligence agencies. A crown prince pretending murder is a clerical error. A murdered journalist whose death is treated like an inconvenient rumor. A trillion-dollar investment waved around like a pacifier. And a football superstar thrown in like diplomatic glitter.
And the audience is expected to clap. Or at least stay quiet while the grown-ups do business.
Khashoggi is gone. His killers haven’t faced meaningful justice. His death is being rewritten through grins in the Oval Office. And the world moves on because money is louder than outrage. Outrage expires. Investments age well.
Trump’s warmth toward MBS says the quiet part out loud. The friendship is real. The shared interests are real. The mutual need is real. And the moral high ground is a myth they don’t even bother pretending to stand on anymore.
The Oval Office has seen scandals before, but this one hits differently. It’s the ease of it. The confidence. The almost cheerful dismissal of something horrific. It’s the knowledge that both men will walk out of that room more powerful than they walked in, while the man they’re discussing can’t walk anywhere.
And the world will watch the clip, shrug, and scroll.
Because these days even murder has to compete with memes.
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