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“Things happen.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for the US president to brush off what is probably the most infamous journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his contempt for the press, for journalism – and for the truth.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissive attitude of the killing of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi came during a press conference with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the CIA concluded in a 2021 report had orchestrated the abduction and murder of the journalist in 2018. (The crown prince has denied involvement.)

The US intelligence services were not the sole entities to conclude the homicide – which took place in the Saudi consulate in Turkey and in which the late Khashoggi was sedated and cut apart – was approved at the top echelons. An investigation led by then UN special rapporteur, the UN investigator, reached comparable findings.

International Response

For a short time, nations were in agreement in their condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The US enacted sanctions and visa bans in 2021 over the murder, although it refrained of penalizing Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the nation has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the crown prince’s visit to Washington seemed to be the ultimate sign of that rehabilitation.

White House Remarks

Critics of the government had roundly condemned the visit. But what was evident at the presidential residence was more alarming than could have been imagined. Not only did the president fete Prince Mohammed but he effectively rewrote history – and then blamed the deceased. The crown prince, he claimed when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in clear opposition to what his country’s own intelligence services concluded previously. Moreover, Trump said: “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or didn’t like him, incidents occur.”

Established Conduct

This marks a fresh and shameful low for a leader who has made no attempt to hide of his disdain for the truth – or for the press. He has defamed reporters (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the inquiry about the journalist at the Saudi press conference “false information”), scolded them in public (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his connection with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein), sued news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for news outlets he disapproves of to be shut down.

He has pressured veteran news services out of the White House press pool for refusing to use terminology of his preference, and he has slashed funding for essential public media at home and crucial free press abroad.

Wider Consequences

All of that has fostered an environment in which reporters are manifestly less safe in the US, but one in which their victimization – and indeed murder – becomes not just insignificant (“things happen”) but tolerated (“many individuals disliked that gentleman”).

It is no surprise that 2024 was the most lethal year on record for journalists in the more than 30 years the press freedom organization has been documenting this data: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those responsible for journalist killings has established a environment without consequences in which journalists’ killers are literally able to get away with murder and so persist in these actions.

In no place is this more evident than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is accountable for the deaths of more than 200 media workers in the past two years.

Effect on Society

The impact on the public is deep. Attacks on journalists are attacks on the truth. They are undermining of reality. They are attacks on our entitlement to information and on our freedom to live freely and securely.

This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its yearly International Press Freedom awards. My message at the event is the identical as my message for the president: such events may happen. But it is our duty to make sure they do not.