How ugly will this Saudi Arabia scandal get for Donald Trump and Jared Kushner?
As it becomes more apparent that the Saudi Arabian government murdered a Washington Post writer, and that there is reportedly audio and video to prove it, the question becomes just how ugly this is going to get for Donald Trump – who has cowered to Saudi Arabia at every turn – and Jared Kushner – who has been egging on the dangerously out of control Saudi Crown Prince for the past year.
If you listen carefully, you can already hear the optimists of the Resistance hoping that this is the scandal which will finally cause a trap door to magically open up under Donald Trump. You can also hear the fatalists of the Resistance yelling “Trump will magically get away with this without consequence.” In reality, there is little reason to believe that either of those sentiments is accurate. So let’s talk about what the real-world, actual political impact of this could be.
First, we finally have a clear-cut (and gruesome) example of how Donald Trump’s personal financial dependence on corrupt foreign leaders is bad for America. Yes, there have been numerous previous examples. But much of that has either been poorly understood (Trump’s deep financial debt to nations like Russia and China), poorly reported (Saudi Arabia’s out of control warmongering in Yemen), or just not that interesting to the average American (foreign governments putting money in Trump’s pocket by staying at his Washington DC hotel).
This is different. Saudi Arabia murdered a resident of the United States, who wrote for a major American newspaper, in order to silence him. You can’t get much more clear-cut than this. Further, Donald Trump’s response isn’t helping him. He’s clearly so afraid of his Saudi Arabian overlords, he’s not even willing to talk tough. America has been violently attacked by a foreign nation, and in response, Trump is cowering to that nation.
This kind of thing does hurt Donald Trump. His approval rating was in the forties when he took office. It’s in the thirties now. So much for the oft-repeated mantra that no one will ever abandon him; plenty of people clearly already have. Can this kind of thing cost him even more support? Yes. He won’t lose his bloodthirsty base over this, but a lot of his supporters are merely rank-and-file Republicans who have never been sure whether they’re supposed to stick with him or not. If Trump’s approval rating drops, it’ll make it far easier for the Democrats to use post-midterm committee investigations to finish him off.
Then there’s the matter of the personal and financial relationship between Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. We’ve already seen widespread reporting that Kushner has abused his White House position to shift U.S. foreign policy toward or away from certain nations, depending on their willingness to bail out his failing real estate empire. Kushner visited the Crown Prince just before he began arresting members of his own family in a power grab. Trump’s own actions give away that he’s clearly on the financial hook to Saudi Arabia.
If Robert Mueller or the media can dig up proof of a money trail from Saudi Arabia to Trump and Kushner, it’ll put them on the hook for this murder in the court of public opinion. If it can be substantiated that Trump and/or Kushner knew this murder was coming, they could be on the hook for it in an actual court. We don’t know where this will go. But it’s getting uglier for Trump and Kushner by the day, and thus far, they’ve shown no ability to make it go away or even mitigate it.
