Bulwark Takes - Trump's SICKENING Press Conference with MBS

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

Donald Trump welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the Oval Office and whatever you were expecting from the press conference — it was worse. JVL and Andrew Egger share their take on Trump's attacks on an American reporter for asking about slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Trump's praise for Saudi Arabia's “human rights" record, and then meltdown when he was pressed about the Epstein files. Take our quick listener survey and help us make The Bulwark even better. https://bit.ly/bulwarkaudio

Donald Trump welcomed the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman, to the Oval Office slash presidential palace full of gold today. And they had a little joint press conference together. And Andrew, whatever you were expecting, this was worse. We're going to roll tape and let people hear the actual things that came out of the president of these United States' mouth. starting with what happened when he was asked about the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Mr. President, is it appropriate, Mr. President, for your family to be doing business in Saudi Arabia while your president, is that a conflict of interest? And your loyal highness, the U.S. intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist.

9-11 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust you, and the same to you, Mr. President? Now, who are you with? I'm with ABC News, sir. You're with who? ABC News, fake news. ABC fake news. One of the worst in the business.

But I'll answer you a question. I have nothing to do with a family business. I have left, and when I've devoted 100% of my energy, what my family does is fine. 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 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. Mr. President, you allow me to answer. You know, I feel painful about, you know, the families of 9-11 in America, but, you know, we have to focus on reality. Reality, based in 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. Well, Muhammad 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, 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 U.S. 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, you know, cut up with a bone saw to be smuggled out. This is stuff that we know with, with reasonable certainty, took place. And the idea that

it took place, you know, without the knowledge of, you know, 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 in here are buddies. But what was not necessarily obvious was that he would have by far the worst of the two takes on it, right? You know, what's one bone-sod journalist, you know, who wasn't very unpopular.

Not everybody even liked him anyway, to begin with, you know. A lot of people didn't like him and things happen, Andrew. Things happen. Yeah, these things happen. I mean, it's, look, like- A lot of people don't like Donald Trump. We don't think it's okay for things to happen to Donald Trump. 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 on the side? 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 bonsoe, even the guy who authorized the bone saw 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. 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, look, I would love to live in a world where geopolitics was ruled by morality, but it isn't. And Muhammad 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 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. These are simply the facts of life. And it is unsavory that Americans have to, like, hold hands 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 the, 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 geopolitics works. 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. They're actual buddies. 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 interest in the region, are concerned. No, Donald Trump likes MBS first and foremost because they're buds, they're friends. Donald Trump goes over there and MBS rolls out, you know, the, the, the gold carpet

anybody's ever seen and treats him to like, you know, the finest whining and dining anybody has ever said and lards him up with flattery. Another thing we got in this press conference was, was a, at least, I mean, Maybe you had seen this. I had not seen that MBS was the originator of that thing Trump loves to say about how the U.S. a couple years ago, the U.S. was dead, and now the U.S. is hot under Trump. 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 a 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. MBS tells him things like this. He's 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. And this is what I was trying to get at, right? It would be nice to have a president who was like just four square 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 well. more deference and respect and cordiality than he does say Emmanuel Macron, right? I mean, he, Trump looks at Vladimir Zelensky 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 clip on Trump's answer about human rights? 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. Yeah, I mean, this is just what we're talking about. I mean, this is the unforced stuff. This is not real politic. This is not, 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 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, of sort of American investment in him, and not just that, but also, I mean, there's, 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, it's just, the more you scratch at this particular relationship, it 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 grotesquery of it, it's hard to think of one that is that is grosser to watch in real time than this one. 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 Koshoggi stuff but 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. On the on the 9-11 stuff he gives 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 the 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 his relationship with the American people. Trump's response to the American people on the Epstein is here. Mr. President, why wait for Congress to release the Epstein files? Why not just do it now? 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's 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 psyched 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 I guess I turned out to 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 are 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 ABCs is...

Your company, your crappy company is one of the perpetrators. And I'll tell you something, I'll tell you something. So why not just sign it out? 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 your news is not credible. and you're not credible as a reporter. So I've answered your question. Did he?

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? 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 see he's still a little steamed about that.

Look, we should talk about the attitude, because obviously that's what you were you were talking about a bit ago, it's insane. It's just, it's insane that he, he cannot manage to keep a tongue in his head, a civil tongue in his head, like MBS does when, when, 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. Like, 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 like, the other thing is just, 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. Boy, yeah. I wonder why 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 guy? 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 Washington on a rail for doing this. If he had dared to say about Fox News that I'm, you know,

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. 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, 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. Things happen. You know, I'm going to leave you, leave you guys with this. 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. 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 Eager. We're with the bulwark. Hit like, hit subscribe, come follow us, because as bad as this is, I do think the tide is kind of turning.