The Latest: Trump gives Saudi crown prince warm White House embrace

President Donald Trump is feting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday during the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia’s first White House visit since Saudi agents killed Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

The U.S.-Saudi relationship had been sent into a tailspin by the operation targeting Khashoggi, a fierce critic of the kingdom, that U.S. intelligence agencies later determined Prince Mohammed likely directed the agents to carry out. But seven years later, Trump has tightened his embrace of the crown prince, whom he views as an indispensable player in shaping the Middle East in the decades to come. Prince Mohammed, for his part, denies involvement in the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen and Virginia resident.

The two leaders will unveil billions of dollars in deals, including one to sell the Saudis F-35 fighter jets, and huddle with aides to discuss the tricky path ahead in a volatile Middle East. They’ll end their day with an evening White House soiree, organized by first lady Melania Trump, to honor the prince.

The Latest:

The president said the Crown Prince “knew nothing about it” and said of Khashoggi that “a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman.”

Trump lashed out at a reporter who asked the question, calling her “fake news” and chastising her saying “you don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking him a question like that.”

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Trump that his country would be increasing its financial commitments to the U.S. from $600 billion to $1 trillion.

“Good, I like that very much,” Trump said.

Prince Mohammed was asked if Saudi Arabia can sustain the investments given the current low level of oil prices, but he indicated that the deals on computer chips fit with his country’s development.

The president has tried to make the case that his mix of tariffs and diplomacy will create $21 trillion in investment commitments before the end of the year.

It’s an improbably high sum and the White House can’t fully explain how the president reached that total.

But Trump is facing pushback from the public on his economic leadership and has promised that the investments will create jobs domestically.

“We have a extremely respected man in the Oval Office today,” Trump said to open the news media spray, calling Mohammed bin Salman “a friend of mine for a very long time.”

Trump also praised the prince’s father.

The president is still speaking about how great he thinks the U.S. is performing under his leadership.

The president and Prince Mohammed walked slowly on the White House Colonnade, where Trump has hung portraits of all the presidents except one – Biden – in gold frames, with gold ornamentations above them and large gold letters on the wall that say in a curly script: “The Presidential Walk of Fame.”

Trump and the crown prince walked slowly, pausing for several minutes at the portraits of former Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In place of Biden’s portrait, Trump has hung a picture of an autopen signing the former president’s name. Trump showed it off to Prince Mohammed before they went to enter the Oval Office together.

Rep. Valerie Foushee, a Democrat whose district includes part of Raleigh and its suburbs, said the expanded deployment of federal immigration agents “is a profound abuse of power, a violation of civil rights, and a stain on our democracy.”

“Our cities are not border cities, and our state is not a war zone,” Foushee said in a news release. “Yet, the Trump Administration has chosen to initiate policies designed to instill fear, undermine due process, and disproportionately target Black, Brown, and immigrant residents.”

Trump greeted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House’s South Lawn entrance.

Trump welcomed the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia with a handshake and arm slung over Prince Mohammed’s shoulder.

A military band was also on hand for Prince Mohammed and there was a flyover.

Former President Joe Biden famously greeted Prince Mohammed with a fist bump during his 2022 visit to Saudi Arabia.

This is Prince Mohammed’s first White House visit since the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.

Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania wrote Attorney General Pam Bondi requesting all information about whether companies and industries that donated to the Trump administration have brokered deals to avoid prosecution by the administration.

“When corporations break the law and exploit the American people, they must be held to account,” the letter reads. “It is your duty as attorney general to uphold the laws of this country, regardless of who committed the wrongdoing and how much support they have given to the Trump administration.”

The Justice Department and White House have dismissed allegations of corruption.

Lee questioned the Justice Department’s decision not to criminally prosecute Boeing, an aerospace firm that donated to Trump’s inauguration, after a decision by the administration earlier this month to not prosecute fatal crashes by the firm’s planes. She also contended that cryptocurrency and defense firms may have “conflicts of interest with President Trump” that are preventing them from being investigated or prosecuted.

But the Republican speaker denounced what he called a politically-motivated “show vote” to release the files of the convicted sex offender as an attack on Trump.

Trump has “nothing to hide” in the investigation over the late financier’s alleged sexual trafficking.

Johnson argued during a private morning meeting of House Republicans and at his weekly press conference at the Capitol that release of the Epstein files could put victims unnecessarily in the limelight. He hopes it can be amended in the Senate.

Nevertheless Johnson said he expects a unanimous vote in the House this afternoon, sending the legislation that would force the release of the files to the Senate.

Greene, once a close ally of Trump’s who has sparred increasingly with him recently, made the comments at a press conference Tuesday ahead of a House vote to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein. She was among the few Republicans to sign on to a discharge petition to force the Epstein vote, and she squarely blamed Trump for allowing the issue to divide the party’s base.

“This has been one of the most destructive things to MAGA,” said Greene. “Watching the man that we supported early on. Three elections. … watching this actually turn into a fight has ripped MAGA apart.”

Worries about immigration enforcement in Raleigh, North Carolina, have spread among South Asians who were drawn to the Research Triangle Park region by high-tech jobs.

Satish Garimella is mayor pro tempore in Morrisville, just west of Raleigh, where Asians represent nearly half the of the town’s population of more than 30,000. He grew up in India but is now a U.S. citizen.

Garimella said the expected arrival of immigration agents is “creating a lot of panic in the community” that immigrants lawfully in the country could be swept up. He’s recommending that they carry with them IDs, copies of passports and other documents affirming their legal status.

“You just don’t know when you will be questioned and what things are needed,” said Garimella, a product manager for a pharmaceutical company. “Even a person who is a citizen is not immune.”

Women speaking out at the U.S. Capitol are holding pictures of themselves as the children they were when they met the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender.

The photos are meant to show lawmakers that “this is who you are fighting for,” Haley Robson said, and she denounced any political retribution against the lawmakers who led this effort.

“I can say firsthand, stepping out against Epstein and his crimes against children, we have all experienced that ourselves,” Robson said. “So for you to knowingly put yourselves at risk and put your career at risk is unbelievable to watch. And we are so grateful.”

Wendy Avis, 14 when she met Epstein, said “none of us here signed up for this political warfare.”

“Stop making survivors fight alone for the truth that should have protected us in the first place,” Avis said.

A coalition of 11 human rights groups called on the Trump administration to use its leverage to press Saudi authorities, who badly want to broaden its business and defense connections with the U.S., to make concrete commitments on human rights and press freedom during the visit.

The activists say Saudi authorities continue to harshly repress dissent, including by arresting human rights defenders, journalists, and political dissidents for criticism against the kingdom. Human rights organizations have also documented a surge in executions in Saudi Arabia that they connect to an effort to suppress internal dissent.

“Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is trying to rebrand himself as a global statesman, but the reality at home is mass repression, record numbers of executions, and zero tolerance for dissent,” Sarah Yager, Washington director at the group Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “U.S. officials should be pressing for change, not posing for photos.”

“It’s not going to happen,” Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said Tuesday, a day after Trump said he’s willing to do whatever it takes to stop drugs entering the U.S., including strikes against cartels in Mexico.

“He has suggested it on various occasions or he has said, ‘we offer you a United States military intervention in Mexico, whatever you need to fight the criminal groups,'” Sheinbaum said. “But I have told him on every occasion that we can collaborate, that they can help us with information they have, but that we operate in our territory, that we do not accept any intervention by a foreign government.”

Sheinbaum said she has said this to Trump and to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and that they have understood.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., says the victims of Jeffrey Epstein fought “the most horrific fight” to ensure the public learns what happened to them.

Greene says she worked to follow their lead even when it meant being attacked by Trump for signing a petition to force the Justice Department to publicly release its files on Epstein.

“He called me a traitor for standing with these women and refusing to take my name off the discharge petition. Let me tell you what a traitor is: A traitor is an American that serves foreign countries and themselves. A patriot is an American that serves the United States of America and Americans like the women seen behind me.”

The top House Democrats defended Rep. Chuy Garcia, D-Illin., in a statement ahead of a vote that would reprimand him for an alleged plan to anoint his chief of staff as his successor in Congress.

Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Katherine Clarke, D-Mass. and Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., called Garcia a “progressive champion” and “a good man.

They did not address the allegations the resolution makes against Garcia.

The resolution was brought by a fellow Democrat, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez. The effort advanced in the House on Monday with Republican support.

“We unequivocally oppose this misguided resolution and urge our colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus to reject it,” wrote the group.

Pro-Israel conservative leaders are gathering Tuesday in Washington to discuss “Exposing and Countering Extremism and Antisemitism on the Political Right.” The meeting features U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, and Morton Klein, president of the conservative Zionist Organization of America.

“We are disappointed in President Trump,” Klein said, adding that he should “rethink and retract” his comments.

At the recent annual summit of the Republican Jewish Coalition, which was similarly focused on condemning antisemitism within the party, executive director Matthew Brooks called it “the early stages of an undeclared civil war within the Republican Party, as it relates to Israel, and antisemitism and the Jewish community.”

When Trump doesn’t like someone, he knows how to show it. In just the last few days, he’s described Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as a traitor, mocked Rep. Thomas Massie’s second marriage after his first wife died and demanded that comedian Seth Meyers get fired from his late-night television show.

But he had nothing bad to say about two people roiling his party: white nationalist Nick Fuentes and conservative commentator Tucker Carlson. The former Fox News host recently hosted Fuentes for a friendly interview, where he declined to challenge his guest’s bigoted beliefs or a remark about problems with “organized Jewry in America.”

Although Trump has targeted left-wing campus activism as a hive of anti-Jewish sentiment, Fuentes’ influence is a test of whether conservatives are willing to accommodate bigots as part of their political coalition.

The sponsors of a bill to force the Justice Department to publicly release its files on Jeffrey Epstein are calling on the Senate to “not muck it up.”

“I don’t want the D.C. swamp playing any games. They need to pass this in the Senate and they should not amend it,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who appeared at a press conference Tuesday with survivors of Epstein’s abuses.

Khanna also praised Republican colleagues Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who helped lead the petition effort to force a vote Tuesday in the House to release the Epstein files.

“Both of them have suffered, as you know, extraordinary political consequences for what they did,” Khanna said.

Wall Street is poised to open with more AI-related losses, just as Trump plans to celebrate a major Saudi investment in U.S. artificial-intelligence infrastructure.

Nvidia, at the center of the craze over AI, slid another 1.1% ahead of its earnings report on Wednesday. This month alone the AI juggernaut’s shares are down 8.6%. Most other chipmakers also retreated early Tuesday, with Micron, Intel and Qualcomm shedding between 1% and 2%. Microsoft fell 1.5% and Amazon lost 1.8%.

Worries that stock prices have shot too high have roiled world markets recently, with big swings in places that rely heavily on exports of computer chips. Critics have been warning that the U.S. stock market could be primed for a drop because of how high prices have shot since April, leaving them looking too expensive.

He’s determined to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil by investing in sectors like mining, technology and tourism.

To that end, Saudi Arabia is expected to announce a multi-billion dollar investment in U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure, and the two countries will lay out details about new cooperation in the civil nuclear energy sector, according to a senior Trump administration official who was not authorized to comment publicly ahead of the formal announcement.

An investment summit at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday will include the heads of Salesforce, Qualcomm, Pfizer, the Cleveland Clinic, Chevron and Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s national oil and natural gas company, where even more deals with the Saudis could be announced.

The House is expected to vote Tuesday evening on legislation to force the Justice Department to publicly release its files on the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, the culmination of a monthslong effort that has overcome opposition from Trump and Republican leadership.

The Trump administration’s blueprint to secure and govern Gaza won strong approval at the United Nations on Monday.

The U.S. resolution authorizes an international stabilization force to provide security in Gaza, approves a transitional authority to be overseen by Trump and envisions a possible future path to an independent Palestinian state.

Federal immigration authorities could expand operations in North Carolina as soon as Tuesday, the mayor of the state’s capital city said.

Customs and Border Protection agents have continued operating in Charlotte, where they arrested more than 130 people over the weekend.