My big fear in the Donald Trump – Saudi Arabia murder scandal

| 6:54 pm EDT October 15, 2018
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Donald Trump is bought and paid for by the government Saudi Arabia, and we all know it. It’s why he can’t even allow himself to publicly entertain the notion that the Saudi Crown Prince was behind the apparent murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Kashoggi. But amid reports that the Saudi government is preparing to put a new spin on the scandal, I’m concerned about this somehow playing out partially in Trump’s favor.

After a couple days of beating its chest, the Saudi government is reportedly preparing to admit that its people did murder Kashoggi, but that it wasn’t authorized by the government, and that they were acting without permission, according to CNN. We’ll see if this plan comes to fruition. But there’s the trouble.

Let’s say that the Saudi King does make this announcement. Then, in a choreographed move, Trump demands that these supposed rogue government agents be held accountable. Then the Saudi government executes them in the public square, Trump takes credit for bringing Kashoggi’s killers to justice, and he gets to paint himself as having successfully stood up to the Saudis. Trump gets a win, and he pokes holes in the narrative about him being a Saudi puppet, even as the Crown Prince faces no consequences.

So could this really happen? There a couple ways this could go wrong for them. First, just because Donald Trump and the Saudi Arabian government claim that the matter has been solved, it doesn’t mean that business leaders around the world will suddenly embrace Saudi Arabia financially again, after having spent the past week emphatically pulling away. So this could still go rather badly for the Crown Prince, who could be ousted by his own family if he costs them enough money. Second, because Trump has absolutely no game and just blurts out stupid things, he might not be able to play this according to script anyway. We’ll see.