Biden fist bump with MBS triggers backlash

President Joe Biden on Friday laughed off the backlash he received for fist-bumping Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — an exchange that’s sparked outrage given the reports that the kingdom’s de facto ruler approved the 2018 assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Biden chuckled when a reporter mentioned that his interaction earlier Friday with the crown prince had come under fire. Asked by the same reporter whether he can be sure a murder like Khashoggi’s won’t happen again, Biden responded: “God love you. What a silly question. How can I possibly be sure of any of that?”

“If anything occurs like that again, they'll get that response and much more,” Biden continued, referring to his 2020 campaign trail pledge to turn Saudi Arabia into a “pariah.” Biden had said earlier in his remarks that he didn't regret using the term "pariah" to describe the country.

At a news conference following a meeting with bin Salman, Biden said the prince claimed that he was “not personally responsible” for the death of Khashoggi. “I indicated I thought he was,” the president said he replied.

Biden's meeting with bin Salman on Friday marked perhaps the most closely watched moment yet of the American president’s trip to the Middle East this week.

Neither Saudi Arabia’s King Salman nor the crown prince were in attendance at King Abdulaziz International Airport to meet Biden when Air Force One landed in the port city of Jeddah. Instead, Biden was received by various other Saudi officials including the governor of the country’s Mecca Province and the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

But upon Biden’s arrival at Al Salam Royal Palace, where he was scheduled to participate in a meeting with the king, the crown prince was on hand to greet the president as he stepped out of his vehicle. Biden and bin Salman then fist-bumped one another before walking inside.

The exchange prompted immediate backlash from human rights activists who criticized Biden for offering what they called too-friendly of a greeting to the crown prince. The president also received criticism from Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan, who called the fist bump “shameful.”

“The fist bump between President Biden and Mohammed bin Salman was worse than a handshake — it was shameful,” Ryan said in a statement. “It projected a level of intimacy and comfort that delivers to MBS the unwarranted redemption he has been desperately seeking.”

That brief public interaction between the two leaders had been highly anticipated ahead of the Saudi leg of Biden’s Middle East trip. It was all the more notable after White House officials told reporters on Wednesday that Biden would seek to limit his handshaking while abroad as a precautionary measure amid an increase in cases of Covid-19 variants.

Still, Biden shook hands with and embraced several Israeli and Palestinian officials prior to arriving in Saudi Arabia, prompting speculation over how the president planned to address the crown prince — whom Biden pledged to make an international pariah during the 2020 presidential campaign.

Biden has received significant scrutiny for his decision to visit Saudi Arabia despite his past criticisms of the kingdom and the 2018 assassination Khashoggi. Last February, the Biden administration made public a U.S. intelligence report which found that bin Salman approved the operation that led to Khashoggi’s killing in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where Saudi operatives brutally murdered the U.S. resident and dismembered his body.

Biden in his remarks on Friday responded to criticism from Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, who said the blood of the crown prince’s next victim was on Biden’s hands after his visit to Saudi Arabia. The president told reporters that he’s “sorry she feels that way.”

“I was straightforward back then. I was straightforward today. This is a meeting, I didn't come here to meet with the crown prince,” Biden said. I came here to meet with the GCC and nine nations, to deal with the security and the needs of the free world, and particularly the United States.”

After entering the palace on Friday, the crown prince led the president and the U.S. delegation to an ornate, parlor-style reception area where Biden took his seat beside the king. On Biden’s side of the room, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan sat listening along the wall, while bin Salman flanked his father opposite them.

Biden and bin Salman then left the king and moved to a more formal, bilateral meeting conducted across a long, rectangular table crowded with U.S. and Saudi officials. The president and the crown prince did not respond to the assembled press corps, but bin Salman could be seen smirking when one journalist shouted a question about Khashoggi, according to a pool report.

Although Biden vowed to take a tougher line toward Saudi Arabia than former President Donald Trump, his visit to the oil-rich country comes as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a global energy crisis and a spike in gas prices in the United States. Biden also is seeking to reassert the United States’ presence in the Middle East as China and Russia move to exert greater influence in the region.

On Saturday, the president will attend a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council plus Egypt, Iraq and Jordan — known as the GCC+3 — where Biden is expected to discuss ramping up oil production with the member states. Biden told reporters last month that he would not directly ask Saudi Arabia to boost its production during the visit, but he acknowledged that he had “indicated” to the GCC+3 nations “that I thought they should be increasing oil production generically.”

“It’s in Saudi Arabia. It’s not about Saudi Arabia. It’s in Saudi Arabia,” Biden added of the summit at the time. “There’s a whole range of things that go well beyond anything having to do with Saudi Arabia.”

At a news conference in Jerusalem on Thursday, Biden defended his travel to Saudi Arabia and did not explicitly commit to raising Khashoggi’s assassination in conversations with bin Salman. “I always bring up human rights,” Biden told reporters, “but my position on Khashoggi has been so clear. If anyone doesn’t understand it in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else, then they haven’t been around for a while.”