Posted on 07/18/2022 8:04:06 AM PDT by Red Badger
President Joe Biden is facing bipartisan flack for his humiliating ‘fist bump’ with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, also known as MBS, during the course of his groveling to persuade the Middle Eastern nation to significanly increase its oil output.
MBS smirked during bilateral talks on Friday in a knowing display of how embarrassing the U.S. president’s kow-towing was to the Saudis.
“President Biden, is Saudi Arabia still a pariah?” a reporter shouted.
The reporter was quickly ushered out of the room. Both President Biden and the Saudi crown prince ignored the question.
Biden later dismissed a reporter’s question after the meeting that he was under “a lot of fire” for greeting Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a fist-bump and dismissed questions about the potential of another murder like Jamal Khashoggi’s.
“What a silly question,” Biden said to reporters. “How could I possibly be sure of any of that?”
“I just made it clear if anything occurs like that again there, [they will] get that response and much more,” he added.
Washington Post Publisher Fred Ryan reacted to the president’s ‘fist-bump’ with MBS, calling it ‘shameful’ in light of Biden’s promises to make the Saudi regime a ‘pariah’ state after the assassination of Washington Post journalist and apparent jihadist Jamal Khashoggi.
“The fist bump between President Biden and Mohammed bin Salman was worse than a handshake—it was shameful,” Ryan wrote. “It projected a level of intimacy and comfort that delivers to MBS the unwarranted redemption he has been desperately seeking.”
And for all of President Biden’s supine appeasement of the Saudis to marginally increase oil production, the White House would only suffer a stinging rejection. The Saudi regime would later announce it was already running near maximum capacity.
But amidst the intense blowback for the botched foreign policy junket, Biden tried to salvage the disastrous optics with the dubious braggadocio that he had confronted MBS, after all.
Biden on Sunday “disputed claims by Saudi Arabia’s state minister for foreign affairs that he did not confront the crown prince about Khashoggi’s murder,” National Review reported.
The president responded, “No,” when asked if the Saudi foreign minister, who was at the meeting in question, was telling the truth. Days before, Biden claimed that he told the crown prince he believed he was responsible for Khashoggi’s murder.
“I indicated I thought he was,” Biden said on Friday. “He said he was not personally responsible for it, and he took action against those who were responsible.”
In 2019, Biden had called Khashoggi’s death a “flat-out murder” while on the campaign trail and called for serious consequences.
“There’s very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia,” Biden said at a 2019 Democratic primary debate. “They have to be held accountable.”
The Washington Post, however, contradicted Biden’s narrative that he had confronted MBS, since his senior aides had decided that coaxing Saudi Arabia into producing more oil was more important than making it a true ‘pariah’ state.
Thus, the Saudis argue that Biden is lying, and there are White House sources that suggest the president is lying. Same old blustering Biden.
False Bravado Biden. What a Joke. Sad thing, it’s not a joke, that’s reality on full display.
Dear World,
Biden does not represent most of us true Americans.
Thank you……
Pedo Pete got fisted, all right...
Or care the agenda ALWAYS comes first.
Amazing how some actual reporters get to slip-in and ask real questions.
We’ll never know if the reporter was just trying to make Biden look bad, or if the reporter even understood that the whole Khashoggi crap was only intended to make Trump look bad (and hopefully drive up energy prices by impeding the flow of Saudi oil), and thus is no longer ‘operative’.
Let’s go Brandon!
The Saudi’s took care of a traitor.
Would we handle it that way? We send them to jail... but we have executed traitors in the past
I going to call it a significant upgrade from bowing
Golly. If Only Chomo Joe were president of a huge nation that had massive stockpiles of coal, natural gas, minerals, and oil he could allow harvested right on his own country.
Not sure what this even means.
Chomo Joe. He and his idiot former boss, Obama, have given the Iranians BILLIONS in cash and paved the way for their nuclear weapons program with the ridiculous “Nuclear Deal” in return for NOTHING!!! THEN, he goes and insults the two most powerful nations in the region, Israel and Saudi Arabia and expects Saudi Arabia to pull his arse out of the fire? What a pathetic jerk. The ONLY good thing to come of this is the alliances Donald Trump helped establish between Israel and other Gulf nations will remain strong in their opposition to Iran. This child sniffing idiot will sniff us right in to a nuclear world war.
In this case I believe the Saudis...
Between Pedo Pete and Pete the Buttgigger it’s hard to keep up with the rodents in this administration.
That’s a horrible image. And now it’s stuck in my head.
Yep, Obama bowed before the Saudis on his “apology tour.”
there are White House sources that suggest the president is lying. Same old blustering Biden.
And this has been a characteristic of his forever. Yet we are to believe that a record setting number of people trusted him to be our president...
what a marroon..
“The fist bump between President Biden and Mohammed bin Salman was worse than a handshake ... Ryan wrote.”
I believe handshakes are a “no-no” during the pandemic.
The “bump” lessens the risk of contagion.
Fixed it for you.
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