Reporter (1:38)

Why should Americans trust me?

Donald Trump (1:39)

Who are you with?

Reporter (1:40)

And the same to you, Mr. President.

Donald Trump (1:41)

Now, who are you with?

Reporter (1:42)

I'm with ABC News, sir.

Donald Trump (1:43)

You're with who?

Reporter (1:43)

ABC News, sir.

Donald Trump (1:44)

Fake News. ABC Fake News. One of the worst. One of the worst in the business. But I'll answer your question. I have nothing to do with the family business. I have left. And when I. I've devoted 100% of my energy, what my family does is fine.

JVL (1:57)

I.

Donald Trump (1:58)

They do business all over. They've done very little with Saudi Arabia, actually. I'm sure they could do a lot. And anything they've done has been very good. That's what we've done. We've built a tremendous business for a long time. I've been very successful. I decided to leave that success be behind and make America very successful. And I've made America more successful by far than it ever was. And that it ever could have been. No matter who was president, there would be Nobody bringing in $21 trillion. That I can tell you right now. As far as this gentleman is concerned, he's done a phenomenal job. You're mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happened, but he knew nothing about it. And we can leave it at that. You don't have to embarrass our guests by asking a question like that.

Mohammed Bin Salman (2:45)

Just. Yes, Mr. President, if you allow me to answer. You know, I feel painful about, you know, families of nine, 11 in America, but, you know, we have to focus on reality. Reality based on CIA documents and based on a lot of documents that Osama bin Laden, he used Saudi people in that event for one main purpose is to destroy this relation.

Andrew Egger (3:10)

Well, Mohammed bin Salman trying to be an actual world leader, attempting to, like, spin and answer the question as if he had been prepped and briefed for it by a foreign minister. That's interesting. Meanwhile, the American president is just blah. Yeah.

JVL (3:26)

Isn't that an amazing thing? I mean, in that room, you have Trump with a guy with MBS right there, who. Everything that we know about the killing of Jamal Khashoggi suggests that we know pretty strongly that US Intelligence knows pretty strongly that he ordered the assassination of that guy back in Trump's first term when he was, you know, called into the Saudi embassy, murdered there. His body was cut up with a bone saw to be smuggled out. This is stuff that we know with reasonable certainty took place. And the idea that it took place without the knowledge of the guy who runs the show politically in that country, mbs, is laughable and has been laughable for years. And yet, like you just said, I mean, Trump could have held him to account on that. I don't think anybody really expected Trump to hold him to account on that. Trump and he are buddies. But what was not necessarily obvious was that he would have by far the worst of the two takes on it. Right. Ah, you know, what's. What. What's one bonesod journalist, you know, who wasn't very. Even liked him anyway to begin with. You know, like, we didn't like him.

Andrew Egger (4:37)

And things happen, Andrew.

JVL (4:39)

Things happen. Yeah, these things happen. I mean, it's. It's look like a lot of people.

Andrew Egger (4:42)

Don'T like Donald Trump. We don't think it's okay for things to happen to Donald Trump.

JVL (4:47)

And the other thing is just sort of like the. His whole posture toward the question, right? I mean, like, whose side is Donald Trump on? Right? Is he. Is he on the side you. Would. You would maybe hope an American president, even when having, like, a friendly foreign leader over, would, like, defend the right of the American press to ask hard questions to that leader to do this sort of thing. And again, even the bones, even the guy who authorized the Bonesaw killing managed to sort of keep a civil tongue in his head about it. But Trump, I mean, he's so mad at this reporter for asking his buddy MBS this disrespectful and inappropriate question and raining all over their parade. I mean, it's astonishing.

Andrew Egger (5:22)

I want to take a tack here that I think a lot of people won't want to hear, which is that every American president since forever has done business with the authoritarians who run Saudi Arabia because they have to. Right? I mean, I, I, look, we, I would love to live in a world where geopolitics was ruled by morality, but it isn't. And Mohammed bin Salman has been, you know, a dictator who's done, has not been good on human rights. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has never been good on human rights. Never. Not, not how they treat women, how they treat gay people. I mean, it's, it's, it's bad. But America always deals with them because Saudi Arabia is the keystone to the Middle East. The Middle east is the source of a large percentage of the world's petroleum reserves, and petroleum is crucial to the entire Western economy. Economy. These are simply the facts of life. And it is unsavory that Americans have to, like, hold hands and, and deal with these guys, but they all do. Obama did it. Biden did it. George W. Bush did it. Bill Clinton did it. George H.W. bush did it. Ronald Reagan, like, just, you know, go back and back and back and it always will be like this until, like, probably forever, because that's just how the world is. But it doesn't have to be this, right? I mean, that's like, none of them have done this, is what I'm trying to say. All of which is like, I, you know, I don't expect the American president to sit there and, like, wag his finger at the Saudi leadership, because that is not the nature of the relationship. I would like it. It would make me feel good. I think it would be the right thing to do. But that isn't how geopolitical geopolitics works.

JVL (7:11)

And I take your point on that. But at the same time, I mean, when you look at Donald Trump's specific relationship with the Crown prince, right, It's a different sort of thing.

Andrew Egger (7:21)

They're actual buddies.

JVL (7:22)

He's not sitting there in the Oval Office, like, thinking to himself, well, you know, I really would like to call out this guy's human rights record, but, like, it's really strategically important to the United States that I kind of button my lip about that and just focus on the. Focus on, you know, the positives and the stuff that, the stuff that we need as far as our interests in the region are concerned. No, Donald Trump likes MBS first and foremost, because their buds, they're friends. Donald Trump goes over there and MBS rolls out, you know, the, the, the, the goldest gold carpet anybody's ever seen and treats him to like, you know, the, the, the finest wining and dining anybody has ever said and lards him up with flattery. Another thing we got in this press conference was, was at least maybe you had seen this. I had not seen that. That MBS was the originator of that thing. Trump loves to say about how the US A couple of years ago, the US Was dead and now the US is hot under Trump.

Donald Trump (8:09)

You actually told me you thought the country was in big trouble. I'm not going to use the exact word that you use. I refuse to say that you thought our country was dead a year and a half, two years ago, but our country was in trouble. And now we have the hottest country in the world. You said that also. And we do. We have. The United States is right now the hottest country in the world.

JVL (8:30)

MBS tells Hans, like, so hot right now. Yeah, yeah. And like, and he personally, he just loves it. He eats it up with a spoon. He wishes he could run the country like one of these sort of oil barons. Yeah.

Andrew Egger (8:41)

And this is what I was trying to get at, right? Like, I. It would be nice to have a president who was like, just foursquare for human rights across the board. But that isn't the case of the. How the American presidency works. We've never had an American president who had a clear affinity for dictators the way Trump does, because he treats MBS with way more deference and respect and cordiality than he does, say, Emmanuel Macron. Right. I mean, he, Trump looks at Vladimir Zelinsky and he hates him. Right? He hates Zelensky, he hates Macron, he hates all the democratically elected leaders. Trump does not like them. He likes the autocrats. And that's the thing, which is crazy. Can we get the, the clip on Trump's answer about human rights?

Donald Trump (9:34)

I'm very proud of the job he's done. What he's done is incredible in terms of human rights and everything Else. And he's the crown prince, the future king.

JVL (9:44)

Yeah. I mean, this is just what we're talking about. I mean, this is, this is the unforced stuff. This is not real politic. This is not like, like focusing on the stuff that we can agree on because it's mutually beneficial in this sort of like, let's be adults about all of this way. I mean, what can you say? He likes him. He wants to be more like him. He wants to, he wants the whole. He, he, he, he, he pines for a future where he's allowed to run his country like MBS runs his. And he loves spending time with him and he loves extracting these extravagant promises of sort of American investment in him. And not just that, but also there's so many things here, not just like investment in America, like in AI data centers or whatever, but giant crypto investments from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund in crypto exchanges that the Trump family owns and operates. Right. I mean, it's all the more you scratch at this particular relationship. Relationship is not perhaps the most like geopolitically damaging because it's not like him cozying up to Putin or Xi or something like that where, like, you know, there, there's real gigantic international problems it creates. But just in terms of like the pure personal grotesque of it, it's hard to think of one that is, that is grosser to watch in real time than, than this one.

Andrew Egger (11:01)

So I'm going to, we're going to play one more clip and I want you to keep in mind as you listen to this. So this is a clip of Trump being asked about the Epstein files. I want you to think about the tone that Trump takes with an American reporter here and his utter hostility and contempt that he has for an American journalist. And in your mind, think back to the first clip where MBS answers that reporter's question about the 9 11. He skips the Khashoggi stuff, but he.

JVL (11:32)

Gets to, he did get to that. He got to that a little like a little after what we, what we did. Answer it a little bit more.

Andrew Egger (11:38)

But what he, on the, on the 911 stuff he give, like he is trying to engage in such a way as from his perspective, he's trying to win over the reporter right now you and I can sit here and say like, no, of course we know this is bunk and all that, but, but his attitude towards the American is one of respect for them and an attempt to, to answer their questions in such a way as to further the, his relationship with the American people. Trump's response to the American people on the Epstein is here.

Reporter (12:10)

Mr. President, why wait for Congress to release the Epstein files? Why not just do it now?

Donald Trump (12:15)

It's not the question that I mind. It's your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter. It's the way you ask these questions. You start off with a man who is highly respected, asking him a horrible, insubordinate and just a terrible question. And you could even ask that same exact question nicely. You're all psyched. Somebody psychs you over at abc, you're going to psych. You're a terrible person and a terrible reporter. As far as the Epstein files is, I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert. But. And I guess I turned out to be be right. But you know who does have Bill Clinton? Larry Summers, who ran Harvard, was with him every single night, every single weekend. They lived together. They went to his island many times. I never did. Andrew Weissman here. All these guys were friends of his. You don't even talk about those people. You just keep going on the Epstein files. And what the Epstein is, is a Democrat hoax to try and get me not to be able to talk about the $21 trillion that I talked about today. It's a hoax. Now, I just got a little report and I put it in my pocket. Of all the money that he's given to Democrats, he gave me none, zero, no money to me, but he gave money to Democrats. And people are wise to your hoax. And abc, your company, your crappy company is one of the perpetrators. And I'll tell you something, I'll tell you something. I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and it's so wrong. And we have a great commissioner, the chairman, who should look at that, because I think when you come in and when you're 97% negative to Trump and then Trump wins the election in a landslide, that means obviously you, news is not credible and you're not credible as a reporter. So I've answered your question.

Andrew Egger (14:21)

Did he?

JVL (14:23)

Well, no. I mean, the obvious thing is that he didn't answer the simple question, which is, okay, Trump has now come out in favor of passing this House bill, which would just force him to release the files. So why not just release the files? That's what I mean. And to close the loop, it's the same reporter who asked the question about the murder of Khashoggi in the first clip. So you can still, you can see he's still a little steamed about that. Look, we should talk about the attitude because obviously that's what you were talking about a bit ago. It's insane. It's insane that he cannot manage to keep a tongue in his head, a civil tongue in his head like MBS does. When she's like, hey, what about that guy you ordered cut up with a bone saw? He's like, I'm so glad you asked me that. Let me tell you my side of the story. And Trump, I mean, I don't know. There's so much stuff, there's so much stuff here I'm going around in circles. But the other thing is just the Epstein answer is so funny on the merits. He's like, I kicked him out because I thought he was probably a creep. I didn't know anything about his creepiness. I just sort of had this hunch that has now been completely vindicated because I never knew about any of his criminal behavior. But I had a feeling, right? I mean, it's just, I don't know. It's good stuff.

Andrew Egger (15:23)

Boy, yeah. I wonder why I didn't narc him out. If he knew that Jeffrey Epstein was a pervert, why didn't he go to the authorities and say, this man is attempting to groom teenage girls? Who could say? I mean, I guess we're so far gone that the fact that in this answer the President of the United States says, I think the broadcast license should be taken away from ABC and that we have a great commissioner and chairman who should look at this again. This would have been enough to end George H.W. bush's presidency. He would have. Barack Obama would have been ridden out of, out of Washington on a rail for doing this. If he had dared to say about Fox News that I'm, I, you know, we nudge, nudge, wink, wink. We've got a great FCC commissioner who I hope is going to take a good hard look at Fox's broadcast license. And now I don't even know if this gets mentioned in the write ups tomorrow about this thing.

JVL (16:22)

Yeah, because it's just, I mean, it's just one more like really unsavory, like appetizer, like side dish to the main course of this insane tongue bath to mbs. I mean, like it's, this is just all the stories now, right? I mean, you cannot give any one of them the attention it so richly deserves because they're all happening all the time and there's only so many hours in the day.

Andrew Egger (16:43)

Things happen, you know, I'm going to leave you. Leave you guys with this.

Donald Trump (16:46)

You know, when you think about it, I'm just sitting here. You're with the future king, a man who's respected by everybody, a man that doesn't have to be doing this, really. I don't have to be doing it either. And yet we're sitting here taking questions. Any questions? We didn't say, oh, you can't talk about this. And there's never been transparency like this, even in his country. But there's never been in our country that's been acknowledged, but we didn't put restrictions. And I'm saying it's sort of wonderful to be taking questions from all over the world.

Andrew Egger (17:19)

That really makes clear the extent to which he desperately wants to be a king. Right. This is his heart's deepest longing, is that he could be an actual monarch. Good luck, America. I'm jvl. He's Andrew Egger. We're with the Bulwark. Hit. Like, hit. Subscribe. Come follow us. Because as bad as this, this is, I do think the tide is kind of turning.