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FRONTLINE examines the alliance between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Donald Trump. Based on more than 100 interviews done by correspondent Martin Smith, the documentary examines the forces binding the two men and their countries together, and what each stands to gain — from ambitions for a new Middle East, to arms deals, investments and personal profit.
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00:00:20President Trump thinks that MBS is a great thing for Saudi Arabia, that he's
00:00:24doing a wonderful job, that he's investing in the United States. He sees
00:00:28that there's kind of a realist calculation about what America's interests are, and it
00:00:32is to remain very closely allied with MBS. Correspondent Martin Smith examines the alliance between
00:00:38Mohammed bin Salman and Donald Trump. Why did President Trump see the Saudis as important
00:00:45to his America First agenda? President Trump saw Saudi Arabia as really the linchpin to
00:00:51the modern Middle East. They buy apartments from me, they spend $40 million, $50 million.
00:00:56Am I supposed to dislike him? I like him very much. Now on Frontline, the Crown Prince and
00:01:02the President.
00:01:24This program contains graphic imagery. Viewer discretion is advised.
00:01:40President Trump is hosting the Saudi Crown Prince at the White House today.
00:01:45The Crown Prince is arriving around 11 a.m. for a series of meetings.
00:01:50For years, MBS, as he's widely known, was shunned on the world stage. Now President Trump will bestow
00:01:55on the 40-year-old ruler, the pomp and pedigree, usually reserved for an official state visit.
00:02:08Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.
00:02:13This is his first visit to the United States since the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist
00:02:18Jamal Khashoggi, which U.S. intelligence assessed, the Crown Prince knew about, even though he's denied it.
00:02:26Quite the welcome at the White House for the Saudi Crown Prince.
00:02:30Aircraft flying in formation over President Trump, who literally rolled out the red carpet to welcome Mohammed bin Salman.
00:02:38This is the grandest reception that essentially we've seen for any foreign leader during this second Trump term.
00:02:45And why? Well, it's all about the money.
00:02:48From Saudi plans to invest billions of dollars in the United States to a joint security agreement.
00:02:55We have an extremely respected man in the Oval Office today and a friend of mine for a long time.
00:03:03What he's done is incredible in terms of human rights and everything else.
00:03:07You've agreed to invest $600 billion into the United States.
00:03:12Thank you very much.
00:03:14Well, thank you, Mr. President.
00:03:15We believe in the future of the United States of America.
00:03:18We believe in what you're doing, Mr. President.
00:03:21Today and tomorrow, we're going to announce that we are going to increase that $600 billion to almost $1 trillion
00:03:25for real investment and real opportunity.
00:03:28I like that brand.
00:03:33Mr. President, Mr. President, is it appropriate, Mr. President, for your family to be doing business in Saudi Arabia while
00:03:39you're president?
00:03:39Is that a conflict of interest?
00:03:41And your Royal Highness, the U.S. intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist.
00:03:47Why should Americans trust you?
00:03:48Who are you with?
00:03:49ABC business.
00:03:49Fake news.
00:03:50ABC fake news.
00:03:51One of the worst in the business.
00:03:53But I'll answer you a question.
00:03:55I have nothing to do with the family business.
00:03:57What my family does is fine.
00:03:59As far as this gentleman is concerned, he's done a phenomenal job.
00:04:04You're mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial.
00:04:07A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about.
00:04:10Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen.
00:04:13But he knew nothing about it.
00:04:15And we can leave it at that.
00:04:16You don't have to embarrass our guests by asking a question like that.
00:04:20Last November in 2025, President Trump welcomed him very warmly at the White House.
00:04:27The crown prince certainly must have felt better to be welcomed back into the White House.
00:04:33When he shook hands with MBS, Trump said something like,
00:04:36I don't mind shaking that hand.
00:04:38I don't care where it's been.
00:04:39Did I grab that hand?
00:04:40I don't care to hell where that hand's been.
00:04:42He was basically alluding to the blood on MBS's hands and saying, I still don't mind shaking it.
00:04:49I have covered the U.S.-Saudi relationship for over 20 years.
00:04:55We're delighted to have you with us at the White House.
00:04:57Very special. Very, very special.
00:05:00I have seen many ups and downs.
00:05:03But the friendship under Trump is something altogether different.
00:05:08This is a story about the alliance between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, and President Donald Trump.
00:05:18It is based on over 100 interviews I have done here and abroad.
00:05:24What forces bind these men and their countries together?
00:05:29And to what end?
00:05:48Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.
00:05:59In the beginning, a close friendship between Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia, a deeply conservative Muslim country, home to 15
00:06:07of the 19 9-11 hijackers, seemed unlikely.
00:06:13During his 2016 campaign, Trump stoked anti-Muslim fears.
00:06:19America first was his mantra.
00:06:22And if I win, I've made it known, they're going back. We can't have them. They're going back.
00:06:35In 2016, he rails against Muslims, and he promises that his administration is going to put American interests first, and
00:06:43we're not going to embroil ourselves in the Middle East in particular.
00:06:47For Trump, there are Muslims, and there are Muslims.
00:06:52They are Muslims who, according to him, are preying on the social services and the social safety net of this
00:07:01country.
00:07:02I want surveillance of certain mosques, okay? If that's okay. I want surveillance.
00:07:09And they are the Muslims with a bottomless swell of wealth that can enrich him, enrich his family, enrich, you
00:07:19know, contribute to his businesses, that can come in the country, build the factories that he wants to build for
00:07:26his supporters, invest in infrastructure, and buy our weapons.
00:07:30They got nothing but money. If the right person asks them, they pay a fortune.
00:07:37In his mindset, they are his people, and they are the other people. And the Saudi royal family are his
00:07:44people.
00:07:45Saudi Arabia, and I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me, they spend $40 million,
00:07:50$50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.
00:07:53But, you know, Saudi Arabia makes $1 billion a day. A day.
00:08:00Why did President Trump see the Saudis as important to his America First agenda?
00:08:07President Trump saw Saudi Arabia as really the linchpin to the modern Middle East.
00:08:13Victoria Coates was Trump's Deputy National Security Advisor for Middle Eastern Affairs.
00:08:19When President Trump came into office, he saw the relationship in some disrepair. And so, he saw a real opportunity
00:08:28there. And also, in the person of the Crown Prince, a future leader who was very interested in modernizing the
00:08:37kingdom.
00:08:56It was just after Trump's 2016 surprise election that the Saudis sent a delegation to New York.
00:09:04They were looking to reset relations with the U.S.
00:09:08I sat down with Middle East Envoy Martin Indyk in 2019. He has since passed away.
00:09:15Suddenly, here's a new president coming in. Nobody really knows what he's going to do.
00:09:21Except a lot of the things he said seemed to be quite worrying. And they needed contact.
00:09:25And so, the real challenge for the Saudis was to try to find a way in.
00:09:33And they identified the son-in-law of the president, Jared Kushner, and most of the people around Trump as
00:09:39basically a blank slate in terms of their approach to the region.
00:09:43Not deep in their knowledge, coming to it fresh, and with a very transactional mindset.
00:09:49And they came with a checkbook, hoping that by making some investments in red states, they could win the favor
00:09:56of the new Trump administration.
00:09:59Khaled al-Faleh, a high-level Saudi official, was among several Saudis who reached out to the incoming administration.
00:10:07Did you meet with Jared Kushner?
00:10:08I have met with Jared Kushner a couple of times, yes.
00:10:11You identified, or the team that you were part of, identified Jared Kushner as a promising interlocutor.
00:10:18Can you recount what happened?
00:10:20Well, first of all, it is natural between any two allies, as governments change, to reach out to them.
00:10:29You try to understand what are the priorities and how can you strengthen the relationship.
00:10:35We were enthusiastic. This is a government that is going to be pro-business, pro-investment, and of course we
00:10:42are a big investor.
00:10:44We have great interest in the U.S.
00:10:46The appointment of Jared Kushner unofficially, even during the transition period, as his contact, was probably seen with relief.
00:10:54These are family monarchies, right, in Saudi Arabia and the smaller states.
00:10:58And the idea that President Trump would send his son-in-law, I think they probably found reassuring.
00:11:04And certainly a direct conduit to the man not having to go through, you know, layers of State Department and
00:11:11things like that.
00:11:14Kushner did not respond to our request for an interview, but he has spoken publicly about an early encounter with
00:11:21the Saudis.
00:11:22On one podcast, he said a member of the Saudi delegation brought up his inexperience.
00:11:28The guy I was with, Jared, he says, you know, you don't know much about Saudi Arabia, do you?
00:11:32I said, no, no, no, I don't. It's just really what I've kind of been told or what I read.
00:11:36And he says, OK, we want to be great allies with America.
00:11:40Do you know about that meeting?
00:11:41Yes, of course.
00:11:42I heard about it from Jared Kushner himself.
00:11:45He asked them for a document. They produced a document.
00:11:48What were they offering?
00:11:49Basically, it's an extremely strong strategic relationship, financial investments.
00:11:55They wanted to turn the page with the United States and build an entirely new relationship.
00:12:01And they came home with a report to the royal court that said this new president has a very transactional
00:12:08mindset, more so than other administrations.
00:12:12That's how he and the people around him approach the world.
00:12:16Prior to Trump's victory, Kushner was a real estate developer who headed a firm he inherited from his father, a
00:12:23New Jersey real estate baron who'd been convicted of multiple counts of tax evasion and witness tampering.
00:12:31Obviously, Jared Kushner is a very interesting character because his father was arrested and it put him as kind of
00:12:37the person in charge of the family business at a very young age when he was still in law school.
00:12:43And took over this real estate business that his father had created while his father was in prison and was
00:12:48on trial and in prison.
00:12:50The Kushner family's fortunes would soon turn.
00:12:54In 2006, his father was released from prison and shortly after Jared fell for Ivanka Trump over a business lunch.
00:13:04After they married, Kushner would become one of President Trump's top advisers.
00:13:09He's become our principal negotiator with Iran, Ukraine, certainly in Gaza.
00:13:16Jared Kushner will be in charge of that.
00:13:20I don't think that was initially what he planned.
00:13:23I think he is a business guy who kind of wandered into the Arab world.
00:13:29I don't think that was his initial plan, but he got in deeper and deeper.
00:13:37As a grandson of Holocaust survivors, Kushner was an Orthodox Jew who already had close ties to Israel through business
00:13:46investments and a personal relationship with Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
00:13:52The president has the right to appoint basically who he wants.
00:13:56Kurt Mills is the executive director of the American Conservative, an influential right-leaning magazine.
00:14:03I don't think Kushner having limited diplomatic experience should have been disqualifying.
00:14:09I think what was concerning is that he was tripling down on favoring one side of the region against the
00:14:19other.
00:14:20Israel.
00:14:21Israel and its allies, yeah.
00:14:22Do you think he was getting educated by the Israelis as to what opportunity the Saudis might present?
00:14:30I don't think you have to go too deep.
00:14:33I mean, the relationship between Kushner and the Netanyahu family is very, very, very strong.
00:14:39And so, instruction, education, symbiotic information, you know, all there.
00:14:47Kushner has dismissed concerns about his close ties to Israel.
00:14:53And early on, Trump put him in charge of forging a new Middle East peace plan.
00:14:58Bear in mind that in the first term, the president's first remit to Jared was to get to a Palestinian
00:15:05deal.
00:15:06We spent a year working on the peace plan, and I was the NSC liaison for Jared and for Jason
00:15:13Greenblatt during that process.
00:15:16And that was a good faith effort.
00:15:19Jason Greenblatt.
00:15:21For over 20 years, Greenblatt worked closely with Trump, eventually rising to become executive vice president and chief legal officer
00:15:29of the Trump Organization.
00:15:32After he was elected, Trump assigned Greenblatt to work with Kushner.
00:15:36But you had no Middle East experience?
00:15:38Same answer as Jared.
00:15:40No Middle East experience.
00:15:40If anything, I was de-experienced, right?
00:15:43I had my pro-Israel, my negative Saudi.
00:15:50Our immediate task was to try to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which by definition to us didn't just include
00:15:56an agreement with the Israelis and the Palestinians, but as many of the Arab countries as possible.
00:16:03While preparing for the job, they consulted some of the veterans of Middle East diplomacy.
00:16:09But in the end, they rejected their advice.
00:16:12The people who were trying to explain to me how to do the job, who I sought their opinions out,
00:16:18number one, had no track record of success, and number two, were giving me advice that just didn't make logical
00:16:23sense.
00:16:25I don't think Kushner felt that he needed to get briefs by anybody who had expertise in the region.
00:16:32They didn't think they had anything to learn from us.
00:16:35On the contrary, they thought they viewed us as failures, particularly when it came to the peace process.
00:16:41We don't need to listen to them.
00:16:42Right.
00:16:43They had no interest in listening to us.
00:16:46I'll pause a little bit, because Martin is no longer with us, and I don't want to say anything unkind,
00:16:50because I liked him genuinely as a person.
00:16:53I spent a lot of time with Martin.
00:16:55I heard him out, and I found the conversations useful, like everything is useful when you're trying to absorb like
00:17:01a sponge.
00:17:02But there's a difference between listening and learning and accepting.
00:17:10Just because we didn't think Martin's way was correct, doesn't mean we didn't listen and try to understand it.
00:17:16They feel upset that we didn't take their advice and run with it.
00:17:20I also spoke with John Bolton, Trump's former national security advisor who has since become a vocal critic.
00:17:28Did you ever have any concerns about Kushner's ability? Was that an issue?
00:17:33Well, it depended on what he was doing.
00:17:36And since a lot of it looked to be more dilettante's interest in this issue or that issue or the
00:17:41other issue, as I say, it didn't really distract my attention.
00:17:45He did get into some things in terms of immigration policy, for example, to try and help Trump out.
00:17:52It was really very hard to define what he was there to do until he began to work on his
00:17:58Middle East peace plan.
00:18:01Struggling to get Palestinians and Israelis to come to terms, Kushner would push to get Arab states to recognize Israel.
00:18:10Saudi Arabia was considered the key.
00:18:13Saudi Arabia was considered sort of the big prize, the big kahuna of all of this.
00:18:17Why?
00:18:18Largest country in the Arab world, major role in Islam because they are the home of Mecca and Medina.
00:18:25A lot of other countries would look to Saudi Arabia.
00:18:29So I think if they forged a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, I think President Trump would have thought
00:18:36it would be a feather in his cap.
00:18:38Kushner proposed that President Trump accept a Saudi invitation to go to Riyadh for his first foreign trip.
00:18:46The trip was opposed by many advisers.
00:18:49Give me a sense of the debate that was going on inside the administration over that trip.
00:18:54Well, the pros are we can't pretend they're not important.
00:18:57We need a strong, good relationship with Saudi Arabia.
00:19:02They're going to be essential to any kind of peace process with the Palestinians.
00:19:06We need oil.
00:19:08We need money.
00:19:09We need them to buy our defense.
00:19:11But there were others who felt that they were bad guys, so they just felt it was not the right
00:19:15move.
00:19:17What did you think of that decision?
00:19:19I thought it was crazy.
00:19:21Joseph Westfall was ambassador to Saudi Arabia under President Obama.
00:19:26I thought it was good that he went to Saudi Arabia, but not to be the first country.
00:19:30I think he should have followed the tradition of, you know, going to Mexico and Canada first.
00:19:35But objections to the Saudi trip were dismissed.
00:19:39Kushner would become the administration's primary contact with the Saudis.
00:19:44In the run-up to the trip, he even exchanged text messages with MBS.
00:19:50Jared Kushner becomes a kind of point person.
00:19:52Was that ever something that raised your eyebrows?
00:19:57Well, Jared could perform whatever function he wanted to because his father-in-law was the president.
00:20:03It was not a problem for me.
00:20:05He was much more a problem, I think, at the State Department.
00:20:12In February of 2017, I had my first visit with MBS in his palace office.
00:20:19He spoke off the record, but what was clear is that he was very excited that President Trump was coming
00:20:26to Saudi Arabia.
00:20:40When Trump arrived in Riyadh, MBS and his father, King Salman, pulled out all the stops.
00:20:48They wanted Trump's loyalty as much as Trump and Kushner wanted them.
00:20:53The grandeur of this welcome is so different from past presidents.
00:20:58Really just showing how excited this country is that President Trump has chosen Saudi Arabia to make his first stop.
00:21:05The Saudis knew how to play Donald Trump.
00:21:08They'd seen this kind of person before.
00:21:10In many ways, he's kind of a mirror image of many Saudi princes.
00:21:15Everywhere you look, there are posters welcoming Donald Trump.
00:21:19He put his picture up on big posters on the side of skyscrapers.
00:21:25Pretty amazing welcome ceremony that President Trump is receiving.
00:21:29He put on the sword dance.
00:21:37He put on a big display.
00:21:44You play to his ego, and he will do what you want him to do.
00:21:49King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saroud confers King Abdulaziz medal on President Donald Trump of the United States.
00:21:59Trump was over the moon about this trip by all accounts.
00:22:02Just thought it was like the coolest thing that ever happened.
00:22:04He was welcomed by the king, you know, all of these various things.
00:22:08You know, I think it gave him this huge international stamp of approval that I think he would have had
00:22:14a hard time getting in many other countries.
00:22:18To give credit to Mohammed bin Salman of his many sought-after accomplishments, the grooming and wooing of Donald Trump
00:22:27has to be pretty close to the top.
00:22:29The trip to Saudi Arabia, you're on it, right? Give me some sense of what you were hoping to achieve.
00:22:37Well, the first is to develop a real relationship, a rapport between the president and the leadership in Saudi.
00:22:43I don't recall and I would doubt if Israel normalization with Israel came up.
00:22:50In fact, I'm 99% sure it wouldn't have come up.
00:22:53At the time of the visit, MBS was still not in line to assume power from his father, King Salman.
00:23:00Mohammed bin Salman was not yet Crown Prince, but clearly Mohammed bin Salman was being keyed up for a more
00:23:07important role as the favored son of King Salman.
00:23:12Standing in his way was the then Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Nayef or MBN.
00:23:18MBN had been America's trusted partner in the fight against Al-Qaeda after 9-11.
00:23:25MBN was a darling of the CIA.
00:23:28When MBS showed up and represented a real threat to MBN as the next ruler of Saudi Arabia, a lot
00:23:35of the intelligence people got very, very upset and worried.
00:23:39And what MBS wanted to do was to say to the Trump people, I am the guy who's going to
00:23:45rule Saudi Arabia and I'm better.
00:23:48MBN was what? He was Obama's man. He was John Brennan's man, right? CIA director under Obama.
00:23:53And so the idea of dumping this guy who had been pretty tight with the Obama set, were perceived to
00:24:00be as such, I think was an easy sell.
00:24:03Were you aware of him moving into position to become the Crown Prince?
00:24:09Were you aware of the tension between him and Mohammed bin Nayef?
00:24:13I have to be careful how I talk about it, obviously, because I can't disclose things that I can't disclose,
00:24:18but we heard whispers, we heard movements, but until it happened, you know, we didn't know.
00:24:23You didn't have a sense that MBN was on the way out.
00:24:29I can't really get into things like that, but I would say the little sense that I might have had
00:24:33meant nothing until it actually happened.
00:24:38A top aide to MBN was Saad al-Jabri.
00:24:42Al-Jabri's eldest son, Khaled, told me how MBS was aiming to rid the kingdom of his rival.
00:24:49Understanding that Mohammed bin Salman wanted to be king of Saudi Arabia and that the last hurdle happens to be
00:24:57my dad's boss, obviously it was going to get ugly.
00:25:01This trip takes place. How did you see the Saudi-US relationship taking shape at this point?
00:25:08I mean, you can sort of sense what's going on.
00:25:12My dad was actually kind of warned and advised to leave the kingdom.
00:25:20MBN's days were numbered. MBS was the future.
00:25:25And this rising new de facto ruler is positioning himself as a reformer.
00:25:30He talks about women having more rights in society.
00:25:33He talks about westernizing culture a little bit, letting movies play.
00:25:39He gets rid of the religious police saying we're going to have a new paradigm.
00:25:42And that's very attractive to a lot of Americans who are saying,
00:25:44and this is a guy who's going to finally do what's long overdue in Saudi Arabia.
00:25:49But at the time of the trip, Saudi Arabia was still operating as it had for decades.
00:25:57Women were living very restricted lives.
00:26:00Political rights, due process, and free speech were largely absent.
00:26:05How much did Trump or his administration understand about the kind of country they were visiting?
00:26:13There's not much reason to think Trump was particularly concerned at the time that Saudi women couldn't drive
00:26:19or that they still had this, you know, these, these quote unquote guardianship laws
00:26:23where basically women needed a male relative to sign on any sort of major life decision,
00:26:28whether it was getting married or, you know, things like that, traveling abroad.
00:26:32But I don't think that it probably made all that much different for Trump.
00:26:35I just think that, you know, for Trump, these weren't things that he was going to allow to disrupt
00:26:40what he saw as this, you know, blooming relationship with this powerful and incredibly wealthy Middle Eastern country.
00:26:48Yesterday, we signed historic agreements with the kingdom.
00:26:52Trump ended his trip on a high note.
00:26:55At a summit meeting of regional leaders, Trump talked about a large Saudi arms deal.
00:27:00This landmark agreement includes the announcement of a $110 billion Saudi funded defense purchase.
00:27:09And Trump also promised the Saudis he would not meddle in their internal affairs.
00:27:14He has actually said it openly in, you know, in the speech he gave in Riyadh.
00:27:18He said, we're not going to come here and dictate to you, you know, how you should run your countries
00:27:24and live your lives.
00:27:25America will not seek to impose our way of life on others.
00:27:32In Saudi, May 2017, President Trump gives a speech.
00:27:38Human rights advocates and others have seen that as giving a green light to MBS,
00:27:47to crack down on opposition within the country.
00:27:50You know, certainly, President Trump has not prioritized human rights,
00:27:57as you might understand them in, say, a President Carter context, as a tool of statecraft.
00:28:03The United States can lead by example, and I think he wants to do that.
00:28:08But I think he also saw in MBS somebody who wanted to improve the lives of everyday Saudis.
00:28:17You reject the notion that in any way the President's approach on human rights abroad
00:28:27emboldened the Crown Prince or any other autocrat in the region.
00:28:32I think what they do in that region, they do regardless of what the President says.
00:28:39If you look at it, it's pretty clear.
00:28:41He was unleashed right after the Trump visit.
00:28:48Authoritarians are astute observers, and they will perceive the lack of conversation on human rights as a green light
00:28:57and a tacit approval to do whatever they wish.
00:29:01We talked to the son of the former intelligence chief of MBN, El Jabri.
00:29:10He says, if you look at it, it's pretty clear.
00:29:13MBS was unleashed right after the Trump visit.
00:29:16Do you think that's fair?
00:29:17It's probably a little personalized, but I don't think it's spiritually incorrect.
00:29:24Trump wanted that.
00:29:26I don't think Trump has basically any opposition to crackdowns within societies.
00:29:32He doesn't think that's America's business.
00:29:33I think he goes further in that he may actually sympathize with the crackdowns themselves.
00:29:53Just one month after Trump's visit, Mohammed bin Nayef was summoned to a meeting with MBS.
00:30:02Saudi TV broadcasts this carefully choreographed scene.
00:30:08Essentially, what MBS did was make a show of kissing Mohammed bin Nayef's ring as if he was being submissive.
00:30:25Soon enough, MBN was imprisoned, stripped of his title as crown prince, and in comes MBS.
00:30:33That was a moment I remember clearly as just a hinge moment.
00:30:37Suddenly, Mohammed bin Salman not only has the passion for change, but this ability as crown prince to have the
00:30:46whip hand.
00:30:48Mohammed bin Salman next in line for the throne.
00:30:51The new crown prince is 31 years old.
00:30:54MBS was now firmly in charge.
00:30:59Within hours of the news, Trump called the crown prince to congratulate him.
00:31:09Over the next year, dozens of men and women who were perceived as enemies of the state were rounded up.
00:31:17Many thrown in prison.
00:31:19Others were able to flee the country.
00:31:23Saad al-Jabri would eventually escape to Canada, and his son, Khaled, had already moved to the U.S.
00:31:30But two of his siblings were still in Riyadh.
00:31:34You know, I'm from a big family.
00:31:35My mom and dad and, you know, two girls and six boys.
00:31:38All of us were outside the kingdom.
00:31:40The only two that were remaining were my brother and sister, Sarah and Omar.
00:31:44They were 16 and 17 at that point.
00:31:47Just in Saudi waiting for their U.S. student visa interview.
00:31:51So they could come for an education in the U.S.?
00:31:54Yes, yes, absolutely.
00:31:55And join me in Boston.
00:31:57Happy birthday to you.
00:32:01On the first day that Mohammed bin Salman became crown prince,
00:32:05in the airport, as they were trying to come to the U.S.,
00:32:08they were told that you can't leave the kingdom.
00:32:11And for us, we realized that, you know, as a family, we have, you know, bullseye on our back.
00:32:18Ultimately, my siblings were disappeared.
00:32:22And this March, it will be six years.
00:32:25And nobody has seen them or visited them since then.
00:32:31Terrible. Unwarranted. Unnecessary.
00:32:34Totally.
00:32:35Jabri was, yes, he was a pain to Mohammed bin Salman.
00:32:39He was a critic. He was, you know, argumentative.
00:32:43But as you know, being a critic in a system is a healthy thing.
00:32:47Totally unnecessary.
00:32:49It would never have diminished MBS's power, authority, or leadership to have those young people leave the country.
00:33:00Not only did Mohammed bin Salman threaten former Saudi official Sa'ad al-Jabri and continue to torment and harass
00:33:08his family,
00:33:09continue to hold his two children hostage in Saudi Arabia.
00:33:12But there was also attempts and attacks on Saudi dissidents in London, in the United Kingdom, including the head of
00:33:22a Saudi human rights organization whose son was threatened by a Saudi agent.
00:33:30Hundreds of Saudi royals remain under travel ban in Saudi Arabia and they cannot leave for no reason at all
00:33:39other than this is how you keep them quiet and complacent.
00:33:42What is being described as a coordinated crackdown on dissent in the country?
00:33:46Saudi authorities have carried out a vessel.
00:33:49He is part of a monarchy.
00:33:50They are susceptible to opposition, although there's no history of that in Saudi Arabia.
00:33:57Not like Iran or other places where people go out in the streets and protest.
00:34:02It just doesn't happen.
00:34:03And maybe part of the reason that all this is done is to secure that kind of peace in the
00:34:08streets.
00:34:10His tolerance for any kind of dissent was zero.
00:34:17We in the West or the United States don't really appreciate fully how sensitive autocratic leaders in the Middle East
00:34:27are to their dissidents.
00:34:30And I think that in the case of Mohammed bin Salman, he was hypersensitive to the criticism.
00:34:38There are significant cultural and social reforms going forward in the Kingdom.
00:34:43Concerts, freedoms, social and cultural, but politically, you've been cracking down on dissent.
00:34:52I wouldn't characterize it as such.
00:34:54I think we have had a major, major program of reform.
00:34:58I interviewed Adil al-Jubeir in 2018.
00:35:02He was then Saudi Arabia's Minister of Foreign Affairs.
00:35:06Israel Hannes, the Crown Prince, is a driving force behind it.
00:35:09And he's opening up the country socially.
00:35:11And we're moving towards having a more accountable, more efficient, more transparent government.
00:35:16The arrests that have taken place have taken place as a consequence of violations of the laws.
00:35:22And these cases are now in the courts.
00:35:25There's no question that MBS was a modernizer.
00:35:28But on the political front, on free speech, on the handling of dissidents, he was quite tough.
00:35:36Many people were thrown into prisons.
00:35:38And there are those who say that it was President Trump who emboldened the Crown Prince to know that he
00:35:48could get away with the crackdown that he imposed right after he became the Crown Prince.
00:35:53I would take a different view on that.
00:35:55I mean, I'm certainly not arguing that Saudi Arabia is a liberal democracy.
00:36:00They're not.
00:36:01And nor do they wish to be.
00:36:03Do I agree with every choice he made?
00:36:05No, not necessarily.
00:36:06Was there a time during that period, during the crackdown, that the president or Kushner took the Crown Prince aside
00:36:14and say, hey, look, you've got to do a better job?
00:36:17Not to my knowledge.
00:36:18I mean, they were very frank in the conversations I was party to about what they, you know, their concerns.
00:36:26But it was not a human rights issue, per se.
00:36:30As MBS's crackdown continued, a prominent Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, worried he'd be next.
00:36:37Suddenly seeing that journalists, writers, intellectuals who were respected and tolerated in Saudi society and could write their views in
00:36:47various Saudi newspapers, no longer could.
00:36:51And he was horrified by what was happening, but also afraid for himself.
00:36:58Initially, when MBS came to power, Khashoggi was encouraged by the talk of reform and modernization.
00:37:13Khashoggi was quite supportive at the beginning with the loosening up of social life, right, the removal of a lot
00:37:22of these very onerous restrictions in terms of what you could do in public, particularly what women could do in
00:37:31public.
00:37:31But the idea that this was not also paired with some loosening up of political rights, I think very much
00:37:40disappointed him.
00:37:41Khashoggi criticized MBS for his, quote, overly enthusiastic embrace of Trump.
00:37:48MBS moved to silence him.
00:37:51Khashoggi fled to the U.S.
00:37:52At the time, Karen Atiyah was an editor at the Washington Post.
00:37:58We were hearing the reports about the crackdown, and I saw Jamal Khashoggi's name being quoted in a few pieces
00:38:06about the situation.
00:38:09And I just figured, well, why not reach out to him?
00:38:13And so I gave him a call.
00:38:17When Khashoggi settled in Washington, D.C. in 2017, I sat down to talk with him.
00:38:25Before all our cameras were rolling, he spoke personally for a moment.
00:38:29He told me he was uncertain about what he would do here.
00:38:33So basically what I'm doing right now is just restructuring my life.
00:38:37I don't want to be a dissident.
00:38:39But in the same time, I don't want to go back home.
00:38:44And also, I could be banned from traveling.
00:38:48Soon after, Khashoggi decided what to do.
00:38:52He published his first column in the Washington Post in September 2017.
00:38:57Saudi Arabia wasn't always this repressive.
00:39:00Now it's unbearable.
00:39:02It is all quite shocking.
00:39:04But this has not been business as usual in my country.
00:39:09You know, when he started writing in the Post, I think he wanted to believe that MBS was surrounded by
00:39:16people who were giving him bad advice.
00:39:18And so he was using that platform to try to speak directly to his leader, to give him advice, like
00:39:25you would to a nephew.
00:39:27A young man who's starting out in his career and making some, taking some actions that are ill-advised.
00:39:36And as time progressed, of course, he knew that MBS was being himself.
00:39:42Very true to himself.
00:39:44And the nature of his writing changed.
00:39:48Muhammad bin Salman spoke of making our country more open.
00:39:53I have left my home, my family, and my job, and I am raising my voice.
00:39:59To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison.
00:40:03Did you recognize at that point that there was any danger in this for him?
00:40:08Mortal danger? No.
00:40:12Personal sacrifices? Yes, of course.
00:40:22Then came November 4th, 2017.
00:40:26Just five months into Muhammad bin Salman's rise to power.
00:40:31Incredible times in Saudi Arabia.
00:40:33Some of the detainees reportedly held here, Riyadh's glamorous Ritz-Carlton.
00:40:38Of course, though, especially the older guard, are extremely worried by these changes that are happening very fast by sight.
00:40:46The crown prince did something truly mind-boggling, which was to round up a number of his wealthy royal cousins
00:40:55and to more or less imprison them in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
00:41:00It was kind of a shakedown.
00:41:01You know, he called it an anti-corruption purge, but basically he was demanding that they turn over assets to
00:41:11him, to the state, which is him, in exchange for their freedom.
00:41:16Do you believe anybody was coerced physically at the Ritz-Carlton?
00:41:22I don't know.
00:41:23It's possible?
00:41:24Anything is possible.
00:41:26Anything is possible.
00:41:26All I can say is that the exercise was to bring in very senior members of the Saudi financial business
00:41:31community and say,
00:41:33you have money which doesn't belong to you, it belongs to the Saudi people.
00:41:37We would like that back.
00:41:38Now go out and live your life the way you did previously.
00:41:43President Trump weighed in, supporting the roundup.
00:41:47I think the president tweeted something about these people had been milking the kingdom and they deserved, I guess, the
00:41:55implication is they deserved what they got.
00:41:57And that speaks to the point that when you feel you have the endorsement of the United States, effectively you
00:42:02feel you have the carte blanche to pursue whatever you want, both domestically and regionally.
00:42:09Jared Kushner, about a week prior to this big event, had made a private, unusual, unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia
00:42:19at the prince's desert retreat.
00:42:22And they apparently talked late into the night and even played video games together.
00:42:31What they discussed, we don't actually know, but there has been quite a bit of speculation, you know, not all
00:42:39of which I can confirm, that those two events were correlated.
00:42:42That the prince in some way sought permission from Jared Kushner before carrying out this shakedown of the royal family
00:42:53or perhaps simply wanted to feel secure in his support within the White House before he moved ahead with this
00:43:03takeover.
00:43:04Well, certainly he steeped in planning for this event.
00:43:07This is not something that just was a one or two day planning event.
00:43:10We don't know that he got permission from Jared Kushner.
00:43:13But you're right.
00:43:14It's inconceivable that after Jared left, he thought on a whim, huh, why don't I round up the rest of
00:43:20my family and shake them down for billions of dollars?
00:43:22No, that was clearly in the works before that meeting in the desert with Jared Kushner.
00:43:27Do you know anything about that trip and what was discussed?
00:43:30I was on that trip, usual topics of conversation, peace, stability, oil, money, you know, everything you would expect.
00:43:40What's been called the shakedown at the Ritz Carlton.
00:43:43That had to be in the works.
00:43:44Did that come up?
00:43:46No.
00:43:47I mean, I was with them for a very significant amount of time.
00:43:49I can't speak to what, to the times I wasn't in the room, but I was in the room a
00:43:53very significant amount of the time.
00:43:56Writing in the Washington Post, Khashoggi compared the Ritz interrogations to Hitler's Night of the Long Knives.
00:44:04What is absolutely clear after Saturday's Night of the Long Knives is that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is centralizing
00:44:12all power within his position as Crown Prince.
00:44:17Many of us living outside Saudi Arabia will not return home for fear of the same fate.
00:44:24There were reports of harsh treatment, beatings, and even death.
00:44:29I heard those reports, but I've never seen any reflection of that.
00:44:32You have no suspicion about beatings?
00:44:34None whatsoever. None whatsoever.
00:44:36In the wake of the roundup, I pressed a former Saudi intelligence chief about it.
00:44:42And the fact that these people were put up in the Ritz Carlton to me indicates that the intention is
00:44:52not to inflict physical or emotional harm on them, but rather to get to the truth.
00:45:04Like Kushner, I had a WhatsApp connection with MBS.
00:45:11And just after the arrests at the Ritz Carlton, I asked the Crown Prince if he would give me an
00:45:17interview.
00:45:45The jailing of critics or dissidents is common enough even among US allies, like Turkey or Egypt.
00:45:53But no event sparked outrage as much as what happened in October of 2018.
00:46:00That month, Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to pick up some paperwork for an upcoming wedding.
00:46:12Jamal Khashoggi, he went missing on Tuesday. He went to the consulate building of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul.
00:46:19Speaking on Turkish television, Ms. Cengiz explained that he was going to the consulate to collect documents for the marriage.
00:46:24And for that, she felt guilty.
00:46:26I had a WhatsApp group of some friends.
00:46:30One of them shared a screenshot of a tweet by a Saudi exile who basically said Jamal Khashoggi had entered
00:46:40the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and hasn't appeared.
00:46:44And my first reaction was like, please don't let it be what I think it is.
00:46:50This is the room inside the consulate where Khashoggi was taken.
00:46:55At first, the kingdom's story was that he had walked out of the building alive and had gone missing somewhere
00:47:02in Turkey.
00:47:06Turkish officials were furious.
00:47:09They're like, instead of their providing answers to us, they're actually saying that, oh, it's your problem now, he's missing
00:47:17in Turkey.
00:47:18That was a tipping point for Turkish officials.
00:47:22At the pro-government, Turkish newspaper, Saba, reporters started getting details from Turkish intelligence and the police.
00:47:31Nazif Karaman.
00:47:49By the time the reporters had learned about the two Saudi planes, the jets had left Istanbul.
00:47:56But they learned of a recording.
00:48:01I just couldn't come to myself for a couple of minutes.
00:48:06I just couldn't believe the fact that they cut him into pieces.
00:48:10In Washington, President Trump and his advisers were deciding how they were going to react.
00:48:17The reaction, obviously, was blowing up around the world, and we had to decide what our posture would be to
00:48:23decide what we thought the cause of the murder had been.
00:48:27And I was surprised to find, almost immediately without discussion, that Trump had decided that we were going to stick
00:48:33with the Saudis on it.
00:48:34Not berate them in public, but that we were going to support the Saudis.
00:48:39I talked to John Bolton, and he said that immediately the president said, look, we're staying with Saudi Arabia.
00:48:45There was no talk of doing anything really about it.
00:48:48He said, look, and he said, I was shocked.
00:48:53That is John's characterization.
00:48:55I don't recall him expressing any of that to me.
00:48:59You know, it sort of culminates in this statement from the president of public's statement on this,
00:49:03in which, you know, he says, you know, we all decry what happened in that consulate in Istanbul.
00:49:11But I cannot put the security of the American people at risk over one incident that I disapprove of.
00:49:18I consider that to be one of the most important statements that explains what America First means to him.
00:49:25And I know it came directly from him.
00:49:29I texted MBS.
00:49:36No response.
00:49:38A few days later, I tried again.
00:49:42Again, no response.
00:49:45But that same day, MBS answered a call from Jared Kushner and John Bolton.
00:49:50Jared had him on his cell phone.
00:49:53And recount that conversation, what you said to the crown prince and what he said in response.
00:49:58Well, I said my advice would be to find out what the facts were and get it all out as
00:50:03quickly as possible and get it behind us.
00:50:04How did he respond to that?
00:50:06I think he sounded affirmative.
00:50:08Two weeks after Khashoggi's disappearance, the Saudis changed their story and said he'd been murdered in a rogue operation and
00:50:16that MBS knew nothing about it.
00:50:19How is it possible that Mohammed bin Salman did not know of this operation?
00:50:25It's very unlikely he did not know of at least a rendition.
00:50:31I can easily imagine that the decision making might have been as simple as saying we have this dissident.
00:50:39We will conduct a rendition operation from Istanbul and being told go ahead.
00:50:43So you have contacts within Saudi Arabia at high levels that tell you that this was a rendition?
00:50:51Yes.
00:50:56The Saudis insisted they were investigating who was responsible for the murder.
00:51:02You're saying that this is being investigated by the public prosecutor.
00:51:07Yes.
00:51:07But at the same time, you have declared it a rogue operation.
00:51:11So you've reached a conclusion that this was a rogue operation before the investigation is complete.
00:51:16Well, it's a rogue operation. Nobody authorized this. Who would authorize the murder of a citizen?
00:51:20How do we know until there is an investigation?
00:51:23It seems to me that you have made up your mind before you watched it.
00:51:27No, you've made up your mind that it's a rogue operation.
00:51:29It is a rogue operation because there is no authorization for them to commit this crime.
00:51:33There was no authorization for them to commit this crime. That's why it's a rogue operation.
00:51:39Have you heard that tape? And does it conclusively point to the crown prince as working the killing of Jamal
00:51:45Khashoggi?
00:51:46No, I haven't listened to it. And I guess I should ask you, why do you think I should?
00:51:51What do you think I'll learn from it?
00:51:56What was the tape going to tell you?
00:51:58He was dead at the time.
00:52:00He was dead at the time, but we know that the guys that carried out the murder at the time
00:52:09were reporting back to the royal court.
00:52:13I don't speak Arabic.
00:52:16Yeah, but you work with translators.
00:52:20I know what was on the tape. I just didn't feel I had to listen to it.
00:52:23I know.
00:52:23I just think that's violence porn.
00:52:25Well, you know, you can decide to get into the specifics of it or you can do basically what Trump
00:52:31did,
00:52:32which is to say we're going to stick with the kingdom and the commentators can commentate.
00:52:41That we had to consider our interests over the death of the murder of this one guy.
00:52:46Assuming everything turned out to be contrary to what the official line was, it was still an American interest to
00:52:55keep the relationship with the Saudis.
00:52:58Saudi Arabia was always an absolute monarchy.
00:53:01It's a hyper-centralized state.
00:53:03Nothing, good or bad, can happen without at least the knowledge of people at the top of the pyramid.
00:53:14I think that's, you know, fair to say.
00:53:17Also, as a physician, why do you send a forensic pathologist to a crime scene?
00:53:24If you want to drug somebody, send an anesthetist.
00:53:28They're pretty good with IVs.
00:53:29They know them.
00:53:29But like, sending somebody who only deals with dead bodies kind of gives it up.
00:53:39MBS had stopped answering my texts, so two and a half months after the murder, I went to see him.
00:53:46He was at a car race just outside of Riyadh, surrounded by friends.
00:53:53I asked him about Hashouji's murder.
00:53:56My camera was outside, but he said,
00:53:59It happened under my watch.
00:54:02I get all the responsibility because it happened under my watch.
00:54:06I really take it very seriously.
00:54:09I don't want to tell you no, I didn't do it, or I did do it, or whatever.
00:54:14That's just words.
00:54:16I then asked him how it could happen without him knowing about it.
00:54:20Accidents happen.
00:54:21Can you imagine?
00:54:22We have 20 million people.
00:54:24We have 3 million government employees.
00:54:26I am not Google or a supercomputer to watch over 3 million.
00:54:31I asked, they can take one of your planes?
00:54:34I have officials, ministers to follow things, and they're responsible.
00:54:39They have the authority to do that.
00:54:42He didn't say much more.
00:54:46But when the CIA finished their investigation,
00:54:49they concluded that the crown prince had ordered either a kidnapping or a murder.
00:54:57Trump's first response is to basically accept his friend's word, right?
00:55:03His friend MBS, the crown prince, says he didn't do it.
00:55:06He must not have done that.
00:55:08Except here you have the same thing where the CIA says,
00:55:10no, we actually have got an assessment here.
00:55:12Our assessment says this was, in fact, an authorized operation by the Saudi government,
00:55:17and it was authorized, we believe, by the crown prince himself.
00:55:21And Trump dismisses that.
00:55:23This is a problem for him.
00:55:24Does it make it harder for him to do the things he wants to do?
00:55:27Does it make MBS politically radioactive in a way that will interfere with Trump's own strategic goals for the region?
00:55:36And it does for a while.
00:55:39They do point out certain things, and in pointing out those things,
00:55:43you can conclude that maybe he did or maybe he didn't.
00:55:46But that was another part of the false reporting.
00:55:50By the way, I've seen CIA assessments that were wrong many times.
00:55:54And you have MBS who said he didn't do it.
00:55:57You know, I'm not a judge, I'm not a jury.
00:55:59I don't know what happened.
00:56:01What did it do to your efforts to draw Saudi Arabia
00:56:06closer to Israel?
00:56:07Did it have any impact?
00:56:09I don't think so.
00:56:11I mean, terrible thing though it was, we still have to do business.
00:56:14Did you talk with the crown prince afterwards?
00:56:17We met him many times afterwards.
00:56:19Things were still going on.
00:56:20Until I left the White House at the end of 2019, we had plenty of conversation.
00:56:24Did you ask him directly about the murder?
00:56:26Not my role to do that.
00:56:27What is the meaning for Americans of Trump's protection of Mohammed bin Salman?
00:56:42We stand for something as a country.
00:56:45Like free speech.
00:56:47Free speech.
00:56:48For Trump to so boldly excuse and embrace a leader who murdered in the most gruesome way you can imagine.
00:57:03One of his own people.
00:57:05For simply writing columns.
00:57:08For our president to turn his back on that.
00:57:13We are a beacon.
00:57:15We remain a beacon.
00:57:16And that's what it should mean to Americans.
00:57:22Are you ready for Saudi to get away with the murder?
00:57:25No, no.
00:57:26No, no.
00:57:27This is about America first.
00:57:30They're paying us $400 billion plus to purchase and invest in our country.
00:57:36We are with Saudi Arabia.
00:57:38We're staying with Saudi Arabia.
00:57:40Have a good time everybody.
00:57:43Trump was staying with Saudi Arabia.
00:57:47But MBS found himself unwelcome in the West for years to come.
00:57:55In 2020, before leaving office, Trump announced some progress in getting Arab states to recognize Israel.
00:58:03After decades of division and conflict, we mark the dawn of a new Middle East.
00:58:10In a few moments, these visionary leaders will sign the first two peace deals between Israel and the Arab state
00:58:18in more than a quarter century.
00:58:22First, the UAE and Bahrain signed peace deals under what were called the Abraham Accords.
00:58:30Morocco and Sudan would soon follow.
00:58:34But Kushner and his team were not able to convince the Saudis.
00:58:39Once in office, President Biden would continue pressing the Saudis to join the Abraham Accords.
00:58:57Soon after Trump's first term ended, Jared Kushner moved to Florida.
00:59:02Basically, two days after the election, Jared Kushner woke up and told Ivanka, hey, we're moving to Miami.
00:59:08Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner purchased a two-acre waterfront lot for $32 million.
00:59:14Indian Creek Island is the most expensive neighborhood in America.
00:59:19And here he established a new company, Affinity Partners.
00:59:24What surprised me was that instead of going back into real estate, Jared Kushner went into a new business, which
00:59:31is private equity, quite a lucrative business.
00:59:34And his first step was reaching out to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to help fund his new private equity
00:59:42business.
00:59:44Initially, the board overseeing Saudi Arabia's investments through the kingdom's public investment fund was reluctant.
00:59:52The advisory committee, who are the leading lights of Saudi investment world, as well as a couple of international businessmen
00:59:58that they've brought in, thought that it was a bad idea.
01:00:01Why would this massive fund that has access to every investment organization in the world look at the landscape and
01:00:10say,
01:00:10let's go with this young fellow who's never really done this kind of work before and let's put $2 billion
01:00:16in his pocket and see what he can do with it?
01:00:19Board minutes outlined their concerns.
01:00:22These risks have been flagged, including the risk of having limited experience in private equity and the inability for Affinity
01:00:31to provide any quantifiable investment track record.
01:00:34Despite all of these negative opinions from that panel of advisor, the Crown Prince, who chairs the board that governs
01:00:43the public investment fund, nonetheless said, thumbs up.
01:00:48Was that payback or was it a bet on the future? What was it?
01:00:52I can only guess as the motivation, but it kind of speaks for itself, right?
01:00:55You know, Jared had been instrumental in protecting them from consequences from the Jamal Khashoggi murder.
01:01:04And perhaps they saw a future Trump administration coming back.
01:01:09Jared Kushner.
01:01:10In this Q&A forum, Kushner was asked whether the Khashoggi murder made him at all wary of taking Saudi
01:01:17money.
01:01:19Lots and lots of private equity firms, other folks are trying to raise money from Saudi Arabia.
01:01:22Somehow ever stopped after the Jamal Khashoggi murder.
01:01:25Are we really still doing this, Stan?
01:01:27Yeah, absolutely.
01:01:28So let's go to this.
01:01:30I have not seen the DNI report that the Biden administration put out there, right?
01:01:33And number two is, look, I know the person who I dealt with.
01:01:36I think he's a visionary leader.
01:01:38I think what he's done in that region is transformational.
01:01:40I think that when we started working with Saudi...
01:01:43At the time, the Saudi sovereign wealth or public investment fund, the PIF, made a slew of other aggressive investments.
01:01:51PIF is one of the world's largest and fastest growing sovereign wealth funds.
01:01:55The United States is PIF's most important market outside of Saudi Arabia.
01:02:00PIF is invested in better.
01:02:02One of the big things that Mohammed bin Salman did when he came in was take a very, very conservative
01:02:11sovereign wealth policy.
01:02:13And he turned it into a major, right, now trillion dollars in assets, a player in the world's sovereign wealth
01:02:24funds.
01:02:24Mohammed bin Salman, particularly in the wake of the ostracism that he faced after the murder of Khashoggi,
01:02:31massively expanded investments in U.S. businesses reflect both the kingdom's desire to globally become players
01:02:40and use the state's assets, Saudi people's assets, to buy diverse assets around the world,
01:02:46but also as a leverage of influence and control.
01:02:50In the modern times, you don't need an army, you need a sovereign wealth fund.
01:02:54And that really is quite true, I think, if you're a small country especially.
01:03:00They have these big funds, and it's kind of how they wield influence and power in the world.
01:03:07In the Trump administration, you had a really close relationship with the president's senior advisor and son-in-law Jared
01:03:12Kushner.
01:03:13After he left…
01:03:15The crown prince was asked about the propriety of his investment on Fox News.
01:03:20Do you think that sends the wrong message, even if there wasn't a tit-for-tat, you know, I'll give
01:03:26you this and you get that?
01:03:28A lot of… We look to opportunities and investment. We have investment, a lot of investment around the globe,
01:03:33with a lot of peoples and with economic opportunity.
01:03:35So, if Trump becomes president again, you'll leave the $2 billion with Jared Kushner?
01:03:43It's a commitment that PIF have, and when PIF have commitment with any investor around the globe, keep it.
01:03:52Kushner was not the only bet MBS made.
01:03:56He wasn't alone. Steve Mnuchin also walks into a billion dollars.
01:04:00Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, also walks into Saudi and gets a billion dollar investment.
01:04:05It's like a piggy bank for former American officials.
01:04:08It's incredible.
01:04:09It's incredible.
01:04:10And normally would be the cause of a great storm of controversy.
01:04:15And there would be hearings, there would be, you know, investigations.
01:04:20There would certainly be a lot of commentary and criticism, and it kind of came wet.
01:04:26Mnuchin and Kushner have brushed off concerns about conflicts of interest.
01:04:31They were private citizens at the time.
01:04:36Breaking news, we are projecting at this hour the 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump.
01:04:43The former president's comeback will be complete with a win in Wisconsin.
01:04:47America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate.
01:04:54It's an extraordinary political comeback.
01:04:57Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Russia, all very pleased.
01:05:01After Trump was re-elected in 2024, Kushner would eventually again become a senior advisor to the president, focused on
01:05:10Middle East diplomacy.
01:05:11At the time, his firm, Affinity Partners, was reportedly taking in tens of millions of dollars a year in fees
01:05:19from the Saudis.
01:05:20Kushner says he did not take any salary from the U.S. government for his work.
01:05:26What's the danger of taking Saudi money?
01:05:28And what's the danger to ordinary Americans?
01:05:30Why should they care?
01:05:31First of all, if Jared Kushner was a private citizen engaged only in private business, I wouldn't be particularly concerned.
01:05:38The fact that he's still effectively on the Saudi payroll, while making decisions about whatever it is that the U
01:05:45.S. decides to do,
01:05:46while so entangled with the Saudi government, is a very basic conflict of interest.
01:05:54But what do you say to those who say that this is just a glaring conflict of interest?
01:05:59I would say that the records of the company are open, and that if you see any kind of illegal
01:06:11activity, it should be investigated.
01:06:14I've seen no evidence of that.
01:06:15But it doesn't have to be illegal to be a conflict of interest.
01:06:20There's certainly an appearance problem here.
01:06:24There may well be an appearance problem, but I mean, then it's been a problem for, I guess, ten years
01:06:30now.
01:06:31And that didn't prevent the American people from resoundingly re-electing President Trump in 2024.
01:06:39How did the White House decide that it is appropriate for Jared Kushner to be working on matters that involve
01:06:45Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia,
01:06:48three countries that combined have given him more than $2.5 billion for his investment firm?
01:06:53I think it's, frankly, despicable that you're trying to suggest that it's inappropriate for Jared Kushner,
01:07:00who is widely respected around the world and has great trust in relationships with these critical partners in these countries.
01:07:06And so Jared is donating his energy and his time to our government, to the President of the United States,
01:07:12to secure world peace.
01:07:14And that is a very noble thing.
01:07:18You're critical of the work that Kushner was doing?
01:07:22For sure.
01:07:23Yeah, I mean, it's very hard to argue that Kushner's involvement in politics has been net good for the administration
01:07:29or net good for the United States.
01:07:30I think he is using his cards to potentially line his own pocket.
01:07:34This is not Burisma, right?
01:07:36I mean, this is like, this is not Hunter Biden's stuff.
01:07:39This is serious money.
01:07:41During the second Trump term, Trump's two sons, Don Jr. and Eric, also started receiving money from Saudi sources.
01:07:51They announced two developments in the capital, Riyadh, and a tower rising along the skyline of Jeddah, each one carrying
01:07:59the Trump brand.
01:08:00Trump International, the ultimate postcode.
01:08:04Don Jr. described it as almost free money.
01:08:07They just say, you can put my name on this thing, you're going to give us a big upfront fee,
01:08:12and if the thing's successful, you'll give us a piece of the profits in the out years.
01:08:20In a press release, Eric Trump said the Trump Organization, which he manages with his brother Don Jr., is, quote,
01:08:28dedicated not just to meeting, but vastly exceeding its legal and ethical obligations.
01:08:35The sole owner of the Trump Organization is the president, and by law, he's not subject to conflict of interest
01:08:42statutes.
01:08:46Trump has said he's removed himself from the operations of the company and promised to donate some profits back to
01:08:53the U.S. Treasury.
01:08:55In the first term, they actually foresaw all international deals, and yet they raked them through the coals.
01:09:03I think this time, Eric Trump was probably the one who said this, if we gave up billions of dollars
01:09:09and still got raked through the coals, and it's legal for me to do this, why shouldn't I do it?
01:09:15I think that's a reasonable position. If they're not breaking the law, why should they be rewarded with making less
01:09:22money just because President Trump is the president and there happen to be his sons?
01:09:28But the increase in Trump's personal wealth from an array of sources, including Saudi deals and others, like crypto, has
01:09:36been estimated in the billions.
01:09:39This amount is greater than the sum total of everything Donald Trump received for being on The Apprentice, for licensing
01:09:47deals coming from The Apprentice, for his inheritance, and for his best lucky investment.
01:09:53So that's more in one year than he received from the best financial pots of gold of his life over
01:10:00a 25-year period, all coming all at once.
01:10:04And the idea that that's not broken through and that there's not examinations into that going on is really historically
01:10:13stunning, and I think also a testimony to where our Congress is right now.
01:10:20President Trump, President Trump, you're generally regarded to be the wealthiest man who's ever occupied the White House.
01:10:27I hope so.
01:10:28How much wealthier are you now than when you returned to the White House?
01:10:32Well, I don't know the deals I made, for the most part, other than what my kids are doing, you
01:10:37know, they're running my business.
01:10:38But most of the deals that I've made were made before, and that's what I've done for a life.
01:10:42You are also...
01:10:43Do you know what the activity... where are you from?
01:10:45I'm from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Four Corners Program.
01:10:49Australia, you're hurting Australia right... In my opinion, you are hurting Australia very much right now.
01:10:54President Trump...
01:10:55I'm going to tell them about you, you set a very bad tone.
01:10:57Go ahead, John.
01:10:58When the UAE does a deal like that, when the UAE does a deal, what does it want in return?
01:11:03Quiet.
01:11:12Donald Trump campaigned on a no new wars pledge.
01:11:15Everything is about America first.
01:11:17Despite all of Trump's business success in the Middle East,
01:11:20America's best interests were...
01:11:22Peace in the region has remained as elusive as ever.
01:11:26He was very clear of no new wars.
01:11:30Hamas has launched a surprise attack within Israel's borders.
01:11:34At least a hundred taken hostage.
01:11:41October 7th, 2023.
01:11:43President Biden was finally getting close to a deal between Israel and the Saudis under the Abraham Accords,
01:11:51when Hamas mounted an assault on Israel.
01:11:55An unprecedented multi-pronged terror attack.
01:11:58Some 1,200 people were slaughtered.
01:12:02251 were taken hostage.
01:12:05A deep, deep wound in Israel.
01:12:07The worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
01:12:11Kushner's plan for a Saudi-Israel alliance was shattered.
01:12:19The October 7th attacks, as we know, upended the entire region.
01:12:25Israel was badly attacked.
01:12:28And then Israel begins their military campaign against Gaza.
01:12:36With overwhelming force.
01:12:39The end of the war.
01:12:55Leading to the deaths of thousands of Palestinians.
01:12:58And there was no way in that environment that Saudi Arabia and Israel were going to be able to formally
01:13:07make a peace deal.
01:13:08There was just...
01:13:10The public opposition would have been through the roof.
01:13:17MBS reacted to the Gaza war, understandably in some ways, thinking, I just don't feel comfortable aligning with an Israel
01:13:26that's been so repressive against Palestinian population.
01:13:29Certainly the public in Saudi Arabia supported that.
01:13:33They wanted to stay with them.
01:13:37Two months into the war.
01:13:39The very day that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump visited a destroyed kibbutz near Gaza.
01:13:44A rare poll from Saudi Arabia was released.
01:13:48It showed that 96% of Saudis supported cutting all ties with Israel in protest over Israel's bombing campaign in
01:13:58Gaza.
01:14:00The crown prince got the message.
01:14:11Among the Saudi youth, this issue is extremely important.
01:14:15And so he knew that there are certain limits to how far he can push with normalization.
01:14:19As long as he cannot deliver what he said he needs to deliver for the Palestinians.
01:14:28MBS keeps his ear to the street.
01:14:30He knows what his constituencies are thinking.
01:14:34If you have an environment in which Palestinians are being killed in large numbers in Gaza,
01:14:39the idea that MBS just because he saw strategic value in a normalization deal could just jam it on his
01:14:45population was never true.
01:14:49Some observers put the blame on Kushner's Abraham Accords.
01:14:53I think the clear flaw from the beginning of the Abraham Accords was it did nothing to settle the fate
01:14:59of the Palestinian people.
01:15:01I don't think the Abraham Accords happened without Jared Kushner.
01:15:04But if there was any leading intellectual critique of them, it was that they abandoned Palestine.
01:15:09They abandoned the Palestinian people.
01:15:10Kurt Mills of American Conservative laid the events of October 7th at the feet of Jared Kushner.
01:15:21Well, that's completely inconsistent with my experience with Jared.
01:15:26Jared is sincerely interested in the future of the Palestinian people and worked hard to come up with a deal
01:15:33that would be satisfactory.
01:15:35Because, you know, in his mind, to my understanding, this is also the best thing for Israel.
01:15:41What was in the Abraham Accords for the Palestinians?
01:15:48Specifically nothing.
01:15:49But if they had actually put their hand up and said, hey, we can be the glue here.
01:15:54We know Israel. We know the Arabs. We speak Hebrew, some of us. We speak Arabic.
01:15:59We could be great partners here for everybody.
01:16:02That would have been a huge benefit to them.
01:16:04Every which way we ever dealt with the Palestinians, they were never interested.
01:16:08The leadership, not the people.
01:16:11They weren't interested in talking to us anymore.
01:16:15Significant U.S. military assets.
01:16:17Aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln.
01:16:19Is the U.S. about to strike Iran?
01:16:21It looks like we're positioning assets for a strike.
01:16:23A year into Trump's second term, the region was heading towards its biggest escalation yet.
01:16:29An all-out war with Iran, Hamas' chief sponsor and Israel's mortal enemy.
01:16:38A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.
01:16:48Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.
01:16:57Despite having pledged no new wars, in early 2026, Trump joined Israel and went to war against Iran.
01:17:08They rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions.
01:17:15Instead, they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long-range missiles.
01:17:28Do you think that Mohammed bin Salman wanted this war?
01:17:33Based on what I know of him and how he thinks, I don't think he wanted this war.
01:17:39I don't think in any way this war helps Saudi Arabia.
01:17:44Obviously, it's not helping to move their oil.
01:17:48It's not helping their economy.
01:17:50But once the war started, MBS was in a bind.
01:17:54Once it starts, MBS is calling constantly to push Donald Trump to finish the job.
01:18:05At key moments, when Trump is considering pulling back, MBS is counseling a more aggressive stance.
01:18:16How many calls did MBS make to Trump urging him to continue approximately?
01:18:22I know of at least three during a one-week period before the ceasefire.
01:18:27But I am sure that it's far more than that.
01:18:31MBS was pushing for a tougher line for a continuation of this war.
01:18:38Then, as the war dragged on, MBS saw the damage Saudi Arabia was incurring.
01:18:44He denies he ever urged Trump to continue.
01:18:47We hear that he's calling Donald Trump many times in a week and telling him to finish the job and
01:18:56keep it up.
01:18:58I think they're confounded about what to do.
01:19:00Like, my sense is, truly, they didn't want this war.
01:19:06And now we're seeing what happened.
01:19:10They're getting rockets and drones attacking their energy infrastructure, potentially civilian population centers.
01:19:16They're not sure what the United States is going to do about it.
01:19:20So I think it injects a huge amount of uncertainty in the relationship that was needless.
01:19:28I can only imagine that Kushner is sobered by what's unfolded since 2017.
01:19:37Definitely has to be sobered.
01:19:39But look, he's a super ambitious guy.
01:19:42He does not give up easily.
01:19:45And you could also understand, you could also see that he sees grains of hope of something that seemed, you
01:19:55know, impossible in 2024 being achievable in 2027.
01:20:04He is kept at this.
01:20:07And there's no evidence he's let the dream die.
01:20:21While the war in Iran was still raging, Saudi Arabia's public investment fund hosted a conference in the heart of
01:20:28Miami.
01:20:31Don Trump Jr., Steve Mnuchin, and Jared Kushner were there.
01:20:38The purpose of the meeting was to promote business ties.
01:20:42President Trump headlined the conference.
01:20:45Tonight, we're closer than ever to the rise of the Middle East.
01:20:51In a speech lasting over 70 minutes, he declared victory over Iran.
01:20:57For 47 years, Iran has been known as the bully of the Middle East.
01:21:01But they are not the bully any longer.
01:21:05They're on the run.
01:21:06He praised the U.S.-Saudi relationship.
01:21:09It all started with our historic visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
01:21:13And he singled out the crown prince.
01:21:16I want to thank my friend, the crown prince, Mohammed, who is a fantastic man and a great friend of
01:21:25mine and a friend of all of yours, I think.
01:21:29The future, he said, was bright.
01:21:33I'm confident that this partnership will continue to grow and thrive because under President Trump, America once again fights and
01:21:41competes.
01:21:41For one thing, we fight to win.
01:21:43We fight for justice and we fight to win.
01:21:57We fight for justice.
01:22:15There are some вой
01:22:39I have covered the U.S.-Saudi relationship for over 20 years.
01:22:45See his prior coverage of MBS and Saudi Arabia.
01:22:48How do we know until there is an investigation?
01:22:51It seems to me that you have made up your mind.
01:22:53No, you've made up your mind that it's a rogue operation.
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