Why Won't Trump Condemn the Saudis? (Hint: It's Israel. Also, Iran)

Deconstructed

The Intercept

News

4.8 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2018

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The United States and Saudi Arabia have been best friends since 1945, even after 9/11, when 15 of the 19 hijackers who brought down the Twin Towers turned out to be Saudi nationals. Their alliance still holds strong, despite the sudden disappearance and likely murder of Washington Post journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. Much of this has to do with Donald Trump’s financial interest in Saudi Arabia, as well as the fact that he and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu are obsessed with Iran and are bent on going after Iran, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is their key ally in that aggressive endeavor. In this week’s episode, Mehdi Hasan is joined by The Intercept’s DC bureau chief, Ryan Grim, and the founder of the National Iranian American Council, Trita Parsi, to deconstruct the evil Justice League of Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Mohammed bin Salman.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm not giving cover at all.
0:02.0	With that being said, Saudi Arabia has been a very important ally of ours in the Middle East.
0:08.0	We are stopping Iran, and we have other very good allies in the Middle East.
0:13.0	But if you look at Saudi Arabia there, and ally...
0:21.0	Why is the U.S. so keen to help the Saudis cover up the alleged murder of journalist Jamal Kishoggi?
0:27.0	Did all about oil and arms sales and Trump's apartments?
0:30.0	Or is it something deeper? More geopolitical?
0:33.0	Is it really about Iran and about Israel?
0:36.0	I'm Mehdi Hassan. Welcome to Deconstructed.
0:47.0	An American destroyer comes alongside a cruiser in great bitter lake on the Suez Canal and Egypt.
0:53.0	It brings even South, king of the five million people of Saudi Arabia, to a conference with President Roosevelt,
1:00.0	stopping off here on his return from the Crimea conference.
1:04.0	The United States and Saudi Arabia have been the best of best friends since 1945,
1:09.0	when President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with Saudi Arabia's founding king Abdul Aziz on board the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal
1:17.0	to strike the deal of the century.
1:19.0	Washington would provide the security and re-ard would provide the oil.
1:23.0	That alliance has held for more than seven decades.
1:26.0	It held through the Cold War. It held even after 9-11, when 15 of the 19 hijackers who brought down the Twin Towers turned out to be Saudi nationals.
1:35.0	But now, bizarrely and belatedly, since Saudi journalist and Washington post contributor Jamal Kishoggi was allegedly murdered by government agents inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey,
1:46.0	a growing number of U.S. politicians and pundits seemed to have turned on the kingdom and its belligerent young crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, or MBS.
1:56.0	Listen to Hokus' Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on Fox and Friends on Tuesday.
2:00.0	I've been their biggest defender on the Florida United States Senate. This guy is a wrecking ball.
	...

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