October 12, 2018

Look, Trump knew Jamal Khashoggi was going to be killed by the Saudis, and we know he knew. The NSA picked up the plans, and info like that goes immediately up the chain. Now he's pretending to be concerned about the brutal murder, but the most important thing is Saudi arms sales -- most of which were negotiated under Obama, and won't happen until far in the future.

That's who we have in charge. That was the lead story on Morning Joe today.

"It all comes down to money with them but we are talking about someone who is a legal resident in the United States, state of Virginia," Mika Brzezinski said.

"And the reports are, and they're still just reports, but most people believe, Mika, that he was lured to the embassy on a plot that the leader of Saudi Arabia knew about, MBS, and then he was killed and he was dismembered and Donald Trump's response? 'Hey, we get a lot of money from them,' " Scarborough said.

"He wasn't a citizen," Mika said.

"Those are Donald Trump's values and one more thing for voters to think about as they go to the polls this fall. Saudi sheikhs, their cash and their oil, Trump's American values. Good luck with that," Scarborough said.

"There is new reporting on the Washington Post disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi. He walked into the Saudi Arabia consulate on October 2nd and hasn't been seen since," Mika said.

"According to the Post, the Turkish government has told U.S. officials that it has audio and video recordings that prove Khashoggi was interrogated, tortured, murdered, and dismembered. The Post reports that Turkish officials are hesitant to release those recordings. Saudi Arabia claims Khashoggi left the consulate soon after entering and denies a role in his disappearance.

"As Willie mentioned, in an interview yesterday, President Trump expressed concern that khashoggi may have been killed at the consulate, but went on to praise U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia as, quote, 'excellent,' and insisted that any consequences for the disappearance of the U.S.-based journalist would not be economic."

TRUMP: There are certainly other ways to address this but i will tell you right now, up front, they're spending $110 billion purchasing military equipment and other things. if we don't sell it to them, they'll say, well, thank you very much, we'll buy it from Russia or thank you very much, we'll buy it from China. There are other things we can do. let's find out what the promise is first, okay?

PRESS POOL: Do you oppose sanctions?

TRUMP: I oppose -- I would not be in favor of stopping a country from spending $110 billion, which is an all-time record. First I want to find out what happened. And we're looking. And, again, this took place in Turkey and to the best of our knowledge, Khashoggi is not a United States citizen. is that right?

PRESS POOL: Permanent resident.

TRUMP: Permanent resident. We don't like it, John, and we don't like it even a little bit. But as to whether or not we should stop $110 billion from being spent in this country knowing they have four or five alternatives, two very good alternatives, that would not be acceptable to me.

"For what it's worth, the Washington Post notes that the president's claim about Saudi Arabia making $110 billion in arms purchases which he has been making since the spring of 2017 is false. The Post notes that most of the publicly announced items from the summit in 2017 had been previously announced by the Obama administration and there appear to be few if any signed contracts. Rather, many of the announcements were memorandum of intent. They conclude the $110 billion figure is not real and unlikely to come to fruition and even if it did, it represents sales far in the future."

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