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mohammed bin salman
Calls Grow to Release Transcript of 'Highly Disturbing' Trump-MBS Call After Khashoggi Murder
Rep. Eugene Vindman—who was a White House national security lawyer at the time of the 2019 call—said it “would shock people if they knew what was said.”
Nov 21, 2025
The widow of Jamal Khashoggi on Friday joined Democratic members of Congress in urging President Donald Trump to release the transcript of a phone conversation between the US leader and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman following the journalist's 2018 kidnapping and gruesome murder by Saudi operatives.
Speaking outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC flanked by Democratic members of Congress including Reps. Eugene Vindman of Virginia and Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi said she is seeking the lawmakers' help "to get the contents of the conversation between President Trump and MBS to get the truth."
“Try as much as you can to save the democratic freedom of America," Khashoggi implored the audience at the gathering. "Do not be a copy of the Middle East dictator countries. We look to America as our role model of modern civilization. Please maintain it.”
Jamal Khashoggi's widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi: "I'm seeking the help of Congressmen Vindman and Jamie Raskin, to get the transcript of the conversation between President Trump and Crown Prince MBS to understand the truth."
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— The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com) November 21, 2025 at 8:44 AM
Vindman urged the declassification and release of what he called a "highly disturbing" 2019 call between Trump and MBS—who US intelligence agencies say ordered Khashoggi's murder—the contents of which the congressman claimed “would shock people if they knew what was said.”
At the time of the call, Vindman was serving as a lawyer on Trump's National Security Council, where his duties included reviewing presidential communications with foreign leaders.
"All week, I’ve urged the president to release this transcript," Vindman said during his remarks at Friday's press conference. "Yesterday, I sent him a letter with 37 of my colleagues demanding its release. We will continue pressing until the American people get the truth.”
"Given President Trump’s disturbing and counterfactual defense of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman this week, I felt compelled to speak up on behalf of the Khashoggi family and the country I serve," he added.
On Tuesday, Trump warmly welcomed the crown prince to the White House, calling him a "respected man," designating Saudi Arabia a major non-NATO ally, and announcing the planned sale of F-35 fighter jets to the kingdom.
Trump also threatened an ABC News reporter who attempted to ask MBS about his role in Khashoggi's murder, calling the victim "somebody that was extremely controversial" and whom "a lot of people didn’t like."
“Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen," Trump said as MBS smugly looked on, dubiously adding that the crown prince "knew nothing about it."
Responding to Trump's comments, Khashoggi's widow said during Friday's press conference that “there is no justification to kidnap [Khashoggi], torture him, to kill him, and to cut him to pieces."
"This is a terrorist act," she added.
Khashoggi—a Washington Post columnist and permanent US resident—vanished in October 2018 while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkish officials said he was attacked, suffocated to death, and dismembered with a bone saw inside the consular compound. One Turkish investigator said Khashoggi was tortured in front the Saudi consul-general and dismembered while he was still alive.
Saudi officials initially denied that Khashoggi died in the consulate but later confirmed his death, claiming it resulted from a “fistfight” gone wrong. In 2019, a Saudi court sentenced five people to death and three others to prison terms in connection with Khashoggi’s murder. However, the death sentences were later commuted.
The Central Intelligence Agency concluded that MBS ordered Khashoggi's murder. Saudi officials refuted the CIA's findings. Trump also expressed skepticism at his own intelligence agency's conclusion, which came as the US was selling or seeking to sell billions of dollars worth of arms to Saudi Arabia despite its rampant war crimes in Yemen.
Hopes that former President Joe Biden would take a different approach to Saudi Arabia over war crimes and Khashoggi's murder were dashed as his administration continued selling arms to the kingdom and argued in federal court that MBS should be granted sovereign immunity in a civil case filed by the slain journalist's widow.
Trump has sought closer ties to Saudi Arabia during his second term as he courts up to $1 trillion in investments from the kingdom and works to broker diplomatic normalization between Riyadh and Israel.
The New York Times reported Monday that the Trump Organization—which is run by the president’s two eldest sons—is “in talks that could bring a Trump-branded property" to Saudi Arabia, raising concerns about possible corruption and conflicts of interest.
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Trump Threatens ABC’s Broadcast License Again After Reporter Questions Saudi Crown Prince About Khashoggi Murder
Trump also contradicted a US intelligence assessment that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Nov 18, 2025
President Donald Trump angrily snapped at ABC News reporter Mary Bruce while taking questions alongside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the White House on Tuesday.
The testy exchange began when Bruce tried to ask the crown prince about a US intelligence assessment concluding that he was responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
"Who are you with?" Trump demanded to know as Bruce attempted to ask her questions.
"I'm with ABC News, sir," she replied.
"Fake news," Trump said. "ABC, fake news, one of the worst in the business."
Shortly after this, Trump described the slain Khashoggi as "somebody that was extremely controversial."
"A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about," Trump said, referring to Khashoggi. "Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen. But [the crown prince] knew nothing about it. You don't have to embarrass our guest."
In fact, a US intelligence report that was declassified in 2021 concluded that the crown prince personally approved of a plan carried out by Saudi forces to murder Khashoggi after he entered a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey in 2018.
Shortly after this, Bruce tried to ask the president a question about FBI files related to the late sex offender and longtime Trump friend Jeffrey Epstein, and he again hit her with personal insults.
"It's not the question I mind, it's your attitude," he said. "You're a terrible person and a terrible reporter."
He then threatened to take ABC News completely off the air.
"I think the [broadcast] license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake, and it's so wrong," he said. "And we have a great commissioner... who should look at that."
Trump's mention of the "commissioner" was presumably a reference to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, who earlier this year threatened to pull ABC's broadcast license unless it fired late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, a frequent critic of the president.
Kimmel's show was suspended shortly after Carr made this statement, although he was reinstated days later amid public outcry about government censorship.
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Trump Calls Saudi Prince 'Respected Man' as Serial Human Rights Abuser Ups US Investment to $1 Trillion
The president dismissed a question about the CIA's finding that Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of a journalist, saying the writer was someone "a lot of people didn't like."
Nov 18, 2025
A US-based journalist and human rights defender was dismissed as someone "a lot of people didn't like," and the Saudi crown prince who US intelligence experts found had likely ordered the writer's killing was applauded as "one of the most respected people in the world."
That was President Donald Trump's assessment of Washington Post columnist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated in 2018, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday at a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House.
Trump and bin Salman met to discuss a range of topics, from a US sale of F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia to agreements on minerals and artificial intelligence.
Bin Salman also told the president he would increase Saudi investment in the US from $600 billion to $1 trillion.
The BBC reported that Trump "bask[ed]" in the $1 trillion pledge, telling the prince it was an "honor" to be his friend and saying the US "very much appreciate[s]" the investment.
"We're doing numbers no one has ever done," Trump said.
ABC News reporter Mary Bruce asked Trump about his family's business interests in Saudi Arabia and questioned whether the bilateral deals presented a conflict of interest, before pointedly asking bin Salman about the Central Intelligence Agency's finding in 2021 that the prince had likely personally ordered the killing of Khashoggi.
"Your royal highness, the US intelligence concluded that you ordered the brutal murder of a journalist," said Bruce. "Why should Americans trust you?"
Trump was visibly angered by the question and demanded to know what outlet Bruce was with before telling her ABC was "fake news" and calling her comment “horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question."
"He knew nothing about it," said the president, contradicting the government's findings.
Khashoggi responded to Bruce, saying, "It's really painful to hear anyone losing his life for no real purpose or not in a legal way."
Trump, said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, will "overlook the murder of Jamal Khashoggi to pad his pockets and boost the bottom line of the military industrial complex."
Following Trump's comments, Democrats on the US House Intelligence Committee posted a link to the federal report that detailed bin Salman's involvement in the killing of Khashoggi.
US Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) called Trump's warm welcome to bin Salman "outrageous and disgusting."
"Tyrants around the world are celebrating," said McGovern. "After all, why would they hesitate to kill dissidents outside of their borders if the Saudis are allowed to get away with it?"
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