Yesterday President Trump met in the Oval Office with Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and, in the midst of defending him over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, said that MBS “knew nothing about it.” Last night Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA) went to the well of the House and gave a brief speech in which he said that the two most troubling presidential calls he had reviewed while serving on the National Security Council staff were the infamous one with President Zelenskyy and another heretofore unknown call with MBS. Vindman then goes on to imply that the call showed Trump not knew MBS ordered the murder but likely supported it. Vindman first posted the video on Twitter last night. This morning he posted the same video on Bluesky. But in the caption he writes in the post — as opposed to the video — he zeroes in specifically on Trump’s claim that MBS “knew nothing about it.”
Based on Vindman’s statement and what we already know about Trump generally and the U.S. intelligence community’s verdict on the murder, it seems clear that MBS admitted to ordering the murder — that he admitted it to Trump and that Trump was completely fine with it. He did everything he could to protect MBS after the fact. The last point is a matter of public record. It’s important to remember that for a time it seemed like a very open question whether MBS could remain as the de facto ruler of the country after the facts of Khashoggi’s murder emerged. Whether the U.S. and Europe really had the muscle to force that change, I don’t really know. But Trump did MBS a very, very big solid.
A couple other points are important to note here. I don’t know if those call transcripts are technically classified. But they’re definitely among the most prized secrets of the U.S. government and for good reason. Vindman was clearly making use of the Constitution’s “speech and debate” clause to get around whatever legal repercussions there might be for discussing this call publicly. I’ll note that he says very little directly about the call. But you can’t be cute about discussing this stuff. Discussing anything about the call could give the White House a big opening to go after Vindman. But the “speech and debate” clause closes that off. I note this just to make the point that he didn’t just happen to mention this in a floor speech. That was by design.
There’s a more general point that is interesting to consider. The law doesn’t matter under Trump. Certainly it doesn’t matter when it comes to releasing documents either to Congress or due to a court order or in any other way. Most generously we might say that possession is 9/10ths of the law. And Trump, as president, possesses everything. But we’ve seen what Trump stumbled into with the Epstein files. And first we need to remember that Trump stumbled into it. It was his creation, not anything that Democrats or dissident Republicans came up with. In a jagged, record-scratch turnabout he went from grandiosely releasing Epstein Files Part 1 faux-dossiers to right-wing influencers at the White House to suddenly saying it’s done and don’t ever talk about it again. It was the flip that launched a thousand WTFs, to paraphrase the billionaire right’s new favorite ancient poet. There were quite a few people – including me – who never thought there was that much to be interested in about the governments records in the case until Trump made clear that we should be.
Back to our main line of argument. We saw what Trump stumbled into with the Epstein Files. The public doesn’t like being left out of the loop when there’s clearly something big to know. No one could force Trump to release those files (as I’ve noted, Trump will stiff Congress if he wants to …). But he also couldn’t blunt the force of public opinion. This is the paradox of Trump’s rule in his second administration. Thanks to the corrupt six Republican members of the Supreme Court his executive power is totally unrestrained. But he still can’t control public opinion. And more specifically the nature of his power is not great enough to make public opinion not matter. In this case he’s brought the matter right up to the present with a categorical statement and exoneration. This isn’t something he said way back in 2018 or 2019, in the distant before times no one remembers.
Now, I don’t think there’s anywhere near as much public outrage and juice behind the Kashoggi murder as there is behind Trump’s relationship with Epstein. But it’s not nothing. And the public knows a fair amount about it. The US has certainly maintained tight relationships with many foreign leaders who have done far worse. (Indeed, from the Trump/MAGA point of view you might argue that MBS’s role pushing the Abraham Accords and other services justifies turning a blind eye to Khashoggi’s murder.) But Trump has been very, very specific. He hasn’t spoken vaguely about this. He says MBS knew nothing about it. He says MBS knew nothing about it and that he Trump knows nothing to the contrary. It now seems clear that there’s a phone call transcript exploding each of these points. People are going to want to see that. It won’t be anything like the demand for the Epstein files. But it could be one more thing hanging out there, impossible for him or his supporters to speak to in any satisfying way. And, remember, Trump now isn’t as powerful as he was back in July when this latest chapter of the Epstein saga first started.