‘Things happen’ — and for one brief moment, The Washington Post rediscovers its soul
The Washington Post’s increasingly Trump-friendly editorial page has rediscovered its soul, however briefly.
In a piece published Tuesday afternoon, the Post tears into Donald Trump for his friendly White House get-together with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who, according to a CIA intelligence assessment, was behind the 2018 murder of Saudi dissident (and Post columnist) Jamal Khashoggi.
The editorial is unsigned, which means that it represents the institutional voice of the newspaper, including its owner, Jeff Bezos. Better still, The New York Times reports that Bezos was not among the tech moguls who attended Trump’s dinner for Khashoggi, even though others were there — including Apple’s Tim Cook, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Dell’s Michael Dell, Cisco’s Chuck Robbins, Elon Musk and others.
Here’s the lead of the Post’s editorial:
The United States government often advances its national interests by working with nasty people, and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is one of the nastiest. It’s one thing, however regrettable, to deal reluctantly with him. President Donald Trump’s performance at the White House Tuesday was something else entirely: weak, crass and of no strategic benefit to America.
Nor does the Post stint on Trump’s shocking remarks when asked about his public sucking up to bin Salman by ABC News reporter Mary Bruce. “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen,” Trump said, adding that bin Salman “knew nothing about it.” Again, that last assertion directly contradicts a CIA assessment.
Trump, naturally, attacked Bruce, as Associated Press media reporter David Bauder writes, calling her query “horrible, insubordinate and just a terrible question.” “Insubordinate”? After Bruce also asked Trump about the Jeffrey Epstein files, he responded, “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.” He also went to his standard playbook and threatened ABC’s broadcast licenses.
Retired Post executive editor Marty Baron told media reporter Michael Calderone, “Trump’s comments were a disgrace.” And former Post columnist Karen Attiah, who the paper recently fired for an unspecified violation of its social media policy, wrote in The Guardian that “the reconciliation between Trump and MBS was perhaps inevitable,” adding:
There’s much to say about the Saudification of western cultural spaces through the sheer sums of money the kingdom is so obviously throwing into what it sees as soft power. Writers and observers have commented for years about Saudi Arabia’s “sportswashing”, like the kingdom’s sponsorship of LIV golf tournament and the purchase of the Newcastle United soccer team.
Attiah notes that it was she, back in 2017 when she was the Post’s global opinions editor, who recruited Khashoggi to write for the Post. She criticized her former paper for its “erasure of Jamal’s memory and the freedom he stood for,” observing that the global opinion section has been dismantled and that the Jamal Khashoggi Fellowship established in his name “was left to fade away.” Attiah notes, too, that the Post’s editorial board failed to make any mention of Khashoggi’s visit before his arrival; that changed Tuesday, of course, but her Guardian piece was published before the Post weighed in.
I opened my 2018 book, “The Return of the Moguls,” with an account of the Post’s diligent work in freeing Post reporter Jason Rezaian, an Iranian American, from captivity in Iran. The Post campaigned publicly for Rezaian’s released throughout his 18-month imprisonment, and when he was finally released, Bezos flew to Germany on his private jet so that he could personally escort Rezaian back to the U.S.
Wearing a lapel button that announced #JasonIsFree, Bezos took the podium at a reception for Rezaian at the Post’s then-new headquarters and said, “We couldn’t have a better guest of honor for our grand opening, Jason, because the fact that you’re our guest of honor means you’re here. So thank you.”
But that was then, at the height of Bezos’ reign as the Good Jeff. It will be interesting to see whether Tuesday’s editorial will mark more than a one-day respite from his destruction of the opinion section. Just recently a Post editorial went so far as to defend Trump’s demolition of the East Wing so that corporate donors can build a tacky new ballroom on the White House grounds. I mean, seriously.
The question now is how widespread condemnation of Trump’s welcome for bin Salman will be. In 2022, then-President Joe Biden met with bin Salman during a trip to Saudi Arabia after calling him a “pariah” and vowing that he would do no such thing. Biden was photographed giving bin Salman a fist bump, which drew considerable criticism. As Anna Foster wrote at the time for BBC News:
Mr Biden insisted after his meeting with the crown prince that he had raised the issue of Khashoggi’s killing, and his understanding of Mohammed bin Salman’s part in it.
Which brings us back to the photograph. Deeds versus words. A picture that will define this visit — everything the Saudis could have hoped for.
It told a tale of a nation rehabilitated; a strategic partnership renewed. Regardless of what was discussed in the meeting, whatever successes or failures there were, the world has an enduring image to remember it by. One which illustrates a direct course change by Mr Biden.
Now, more than three years later, a different president isn’t just fist-bumping bin Salman — he’s going all in. The Post’s editorial concludes: “The relationship with Saudi Arabia still produces some benefits, but even in a complicated world, an American president should be able to respect Khashoggi’s legacy while conducting the messy business of statecraft. Forgetting Mohammed’s brutality and Khashoggi’s warnings is a choice, and Trump made the wrong one.”
Translation: We need Saudi Arabia’s oil, and we hope the Saudis will prove helpful in crafting a lasting settlement between Israel and the Palestinians — but there is such a thing as presidential dignity, even under Trump.
Trump’s behavior Tuesday was nauseating, which is to say that it was a day ending in “y.” The Trump family’s corrupt business interests in Saudi Arabia, detailed here by Mother Jones reporter Russ Choma, are of far greater importance to him than the likelihood that it was Mohammed bin Salman himself who ordered Khashoggi’s murder — a particularly gruesome affair in which bin Salman’s henchmen dismembered Khashoggi’s body with a bone saw so that the pieces could be more easily transported from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul back to Saudi Arabia.
I don’t know whether the Post’s opinion editor, Adam O’Neal, ran the Khashoggi editorial by Bezos before running it, but I hope he did. Maybe Tuesday was a day when Bezos was reminded of why he added a great daily newspaper to his portfolio. Certainly he was a model owner from the time he bought the Post in 2013 until he lost his way a couple of years ago. Maybe he spent some time thinking about his legacy while the likes of Tim Cook and Elon Musk were making a different moral and ethical calculation.
Probably not. But it’s never too late to do — or, in Bezos’ case, resume doing — the right thing.