In Washington, a growing number of lawmakers are demanding the United States halt weapons sales to Saudi Arabia over the incident, but on Thursday, Trump rejected the idea.
President Donald Trump: “I don’t like stopping massive amounts of money that’s being poured into our country on—I—I—I know they’re talking about different kinds of sanctions, but they’re spending $110 billion on military equipment and on things that create jobs, like jobs and others for this country. I don’t like the concept of stopping an investment of $110 billion into the United States, because you know what they’re going to do? They’re going to take that money and spend it in Russia or China or someplace else.”
Even before Jamal Khashoggi’s suspected death, the Trump administration had been under pressure to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia over its catastrophic war on Yemen, which has killed thousands of people, pushed millions of Yemenis to the brink of famine and sparked the world’s worst cholera outbreak, with as many as 10,000 new cases of cholera appearing every week. We’ll have more on Khashoggi’s suspected death and U.S.-Saudi relations after headlines with California Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna.