Trump passes along Saudi king's 'sympathies' after Saudi national kills 3 at naval base

President Donald Trump confirmed that the suspected shooter who killed three people and wounded 11 others at a Naval base in Pensacola on Friday morning was a Saudi national and announced that he’d spoken with the kingdom’s ruler about the attack.

“King Salman of Saudi Arabia just called to express his sincere condolences and give his sympathies to the families and friends of the warriors who were killed and wounded in the attack,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “The King said that the Saudi people are greatly angered by the barbaric actions of the shooter, and that this person in no way shape or form represents the feelings of the Saudi people who love the American people.”

Members of the Saudi royal family, including the king, expressed their condolences and condemnation of the attack in a statement sent out by the Saudi embassy.

"The Kingdom expresses its deepest condolences to the families of victims, and to the American people," said Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the country's foreign minister. "We salute the bravery of those who neutralized the threat and saved lives."

The name of the suspect in Friday’s shooting has not yet been released, but Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan announced the shooter was killed by sheriff’s deputies who responded to the scene.

According to Morgan, his office received a report of an active shooter at Naval Air Station Pensacola just before 7 a.m. Two deputies arrived to the scene not long after, when they exchanged gunfire with the shooter and ultimately killed him, he said during a press conference.

Friday’s shooting stands to strain the already complicated relationship between the Trump administration and Saudi Arabia. Both countries have been drawn closer together as allies in the face of escalating tension in the region with Iran stemming from Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, and amid a civil war in Yemen.

But Trump has faced fierce pushback from members of both parties in Congress for his reluctance to punish the Saudi kingdom for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last fall, among other human rights abuses. In doing so, he contradicted the findings of U.S. intelligence services while pointing to Saudi Arabia’s billions of dollars in U.S. weapons purchases and its role as a global oil producer.

And earlier this year, Trump angered the rest of Washington again by suggesting he would defer to Riyadh on next steps after attacks on Saudi oil facilities that the U.S. blamed on Iran, with Democratic firebrand Rep. Tulsi Gabbard going so far as to accuse Trump “having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch.”

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday alluded to the potential need for the Saudi kingdom to compensate victims of the shooting.

“I think there is obviously going to be a lot of questions about this individual being a foreign national, being a part of the Saudi Air Force and then to be here training on our soil and to do this,” he said during a news conference, telling reporters he broached the subject of retribution with Trump.

“Given that this was a foreign national in the employ of a foreign service is, uh — and there will be time to do this, but obviously the government of Saudi Arabia needs to make things better for these victims and I think they are going to owe a debt here given that this is one of their individuals.”

Trump made no mention of such a thing at the beginning of a meeting about deregulation Friday at the White House.

"I can tell you it's a horrible thing that took place," he said. "And we're getting to the bottom of it, all of the investigators are there now and they are studying it very closely. Terrible things. And our condolences go to the families, to everybody involved."

Rep. Matt Gaetz, whose northwest Florida district includes the base, posted a video on Twitter describing some of the base’s operations, including how it trains foreign allies.

“Training is a critical part of the mission we engage in at NAS Pensacola. One way we leverage that training is try to ensure sure our allies around the world are capable and familiar with U.S. systems, that they are comfortable working with U.S. officers and that we have an interoperability in our lexicon and in the way that we engage in battle,” he said.

“Saudi Arabia has long sent people to northwest Florida for this purpose,” he continued, asserting Friday’s attack represented a “serious failure in the vetting process” of foreigners coming to train at the base though law enforcement officials have not yet determined whether the shooting was terrorism-related.

Members of the Saudi royal family also acknowledged that many Saudi nationals had received military training in the U.S.

Prince Khalid bin Salman, vice minister of defense who was trained at a U.S. military base, said in a statement: "We used that valuable training to fight side by side with our American allies against terrorism and other threats. … Today's tragic event is strongly condemned by everyone in Saudi Arabia."

The shooting Friday was the second at a Navy facility in three days after two civilian Pentagon employees were killed by a shooter at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard near Honolulu on Wednesday. That shooter, an active-duty sailor, then took his own life.

Nahal Toosi and Matthew Choi contributed to this report.