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Khashoggi’s wife upset by Trump’s ‘justification’ of husband’s killing

admin - Latest News - November 19, 2025
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The wife of Jamal Khashoggi, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, said she was upset by President Trump’s defense of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Trump said that bin Salman knew nothing about the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents, offering a fierce defense of the visiting crown prince that contradicted a U.S. intelligence assessment.



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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleNov. 19, 2025, 1:47 PM ESTBy Sahil KapurWASHINGTON — With a near-unanimous vote in Congress to pass his bill requiring the release of Jeffrey Epstein files, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., can claim a victory that no other Democratic presidential prospect has achieved: cracking the MAGA coalition.Early polls suggest he’d be a heavy underdog if he runs. But the California Democrat has been traveling to swing states and early contests to test the water for a possible White House bid.Khanna, 49, teamed up with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to introduce the Epstein Files Transparency Act in July. The bill requires the Justice Department to release its records related to Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender who had connections to a number of powerful figures, within 30 days.Khanna and Massie attracted Republican co-sponsors and just enough signatures to end-run House GOP leaders and force a vote, with MAGA luminaries such as Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado supporting the measure.It was a rare bipartisan feat, made more difficult by President Donald Trump, who pushed for months to dissuade Republicans from joining the effort. But in the final days, Trump bowed to what increasingly appeared to be an inevitability, flipping his stance and backing it. Party leaders followed him. Every Republican except one joined unanimous Democrats on Tuesday to vote for the measure on the House floor, sending it to the Senate, which passed it unanimously.In an interview in the speaker’s lobby moments before the House vote on his bill, Khanna told NBC News his project contains the building blocks of a national vision.“Whatever role I have, I hope it’s a role in shaping the national future of the Democratic Party and the country,” he said. “We need to build an enduring coalition around a vision of new economic patriotism that can unite the left and right. And the elements of that are to rail against an elite governing class that has created a system that’s not working for ordinary Americans. And then to offer a concrete vision of how we’re going to prioritize the economic independence and success of those forgotten Americans, as opposed to just this billionaire elite class.”He melded the new effort into his larger left-right message, attacking “the Epstein class that has accumulated power and doesn’t play by the rules and has impunity at the expense of ordinary Americans.”Khanna’s approach is unique among Democrats. He doesn’t quite have the fiery rhetoric of other rumored White House hopefuls such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, and he doesn’t have the iconic progressive image of New York’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Simply put, his willingness to partner with MAGA figures who are detested by liberals may not be a selling point for an angry and fired-up Democratic base.“That’s a criticism I sometimes get,” Khanna quipped.Still, the California Democrat shows his sharp elbows against Republicans at times, most notably positioning himself as a foil to Vice President JD Vance, who’s seen as a potential Republican front-runner in 2028. He’ll often go after him on social media. During a speech in April at Yale Law School, where both Vance and Khanna received their degrees, Khanna drew a comparison between the vice president and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Vance’s office did not return a request for comment.Rep. Ro Khanna says Epstein is a winning issue for Democrats: ‘This is about trust in government’01:23Khanna lacks the national name recognition of other Democrats, including Pete Buttigieg, a former presidential candidate and transportation secretary in the Biden administration, who has also been viewed as a potential 2028 candidate.Not since the 1800s has a House member ascended straight to the presidency; and as an Indian American, Khanna would be looking to make history in more ways than one.But what he has built is a level of trust among Republicans who wouldn’t work with other Democrats. He said he’s done that by “being civil to colleagues” — including some hard-right Republicans — and building trust and partnerships with them, giving them credit, taking his message to “Republican-leaning podcasts” and “treating MAGA voters with respect.”“I have not gotten into Twitter wars with Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert. I have a real friendship with Thomas Massie,” he said. “They trusted me enough not to make it about Donald Trump — from day one, any press conference we did, anything we did, we talked about it being about the survivors, not political.”Khanna said his insistence on seeing the humanity in those GOP lawmakers, who are top Democratic foes, was key to success.“It was the whole thing,” he added. “If I had engaged in those kind of meme wars and others, there’s no way Massie would have worked with me.”The White House downplayed the Khanna-Massie effort, despite the president fighting it for months, saying Trump had already been “calling for transparency,” on the Epstein files “and is now delivering on it with thousands of pages of documents as part of the ongoing Oversight investigation.”Khanna has a different vision of bipartisanship than other Democrats, including former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, who sought to find the most moderate Republicans and work with them on noncontroversial goals. By contrast, Khanna tends to look for GOP lawmakers to partner with on populist issues that both the left and the right can sell as a rebuke of an entrenched establishment.He has teamed up with Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., to repeal Trump’s tariffs on coffee, and with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, to propose congressional term limits. He worked with Republicans to advocate for reining in the government’s warrantless surveillance powers under FISA Section 702 and to prevent U.S. military intervention in Yemen.Massie said Khanna’s approach was instrumental in the success of their Epstein measure. He said he saw an opening when Khanna offered an Epstein amendment in the Rules Committee, and “got every Democrat and one Republican to vote for it.”“Ro gave me the idea, whether he meant to or not,” Massie said. “He’s able to put aside the partisan bomb throwing in order to work across the aisle, and he’s really good on TV.”“He was an important element of this,” the Kentucky Republican said. “And it was his idea, really, to organize the survivor press conference. So I don’t know if it would have succeeded with any other Democrat on the other side of the aisle.”Others have nothing to say about Khanna, including Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, who replied, “No comment,” when asked about his role in the Epstein bill.On the House floor before the vote, Khanna thanked his Republican partners on the bill. “The Epstein class is going to go,” he said. “And the reason they’re gonna go is the progressive left and the MAGA right and everyone in between is finally waking up against this rotten system.”In the NBC News interview, Khanna repeatedly invoked President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a guidepost for his populist views and desire to take on wealthy interests, while conceding that his progressive ideals won’t fully upend the MAGA coalition. But he believes he has a better theory of how to engage those voters than some recent — unnamed — Democratic presidential prospects.“Do I think somehow we’re going to win all of Trump’s voters? No. I’m not naive,” he said. “But I think that that has a better shot of winning than we’re just going to do Infrastructure 2.0.”Sahil KapurSahil Kapur is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.
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Nov. 19, 2025, 2:15 PM ESTBy Minyvonne BurkeA former Olympic snowboarder, who officials say runs one of the most violent drug-trafficking organizations in the world, faces new charges related to the murder of a federal witness in the case against him. Officials said Ryan James Wedding “placed a bounty” on the witness’ head “in the erroneous belief that the victim’s death would result in the dismissal of criminal charges against him and his international drug trafficking ring.” He allegedly used a Canadian website to post images of the witness and his wife to locate him, officials said at a Wednesday news conference. The witness was fatally shot at a restaurant before he could testify against Wedding. In an indictment unsealed on Wednesday, Wedding was charged with murder, witness tampering and intimidation, money laundering and drug trafficking. The new indictment also includes several other people, including a Canadian lawyer, who officials say were involved in the murder. The U.S. Department of State increased its reward from $10 million to $15 million for information that leads to the arrest and/or conviction of Wedding, who is on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List. “You do not get to be a drug kingpin and evade the law,” FBI Director Kash Patel said at the news conference. “Make no mistake about it, Ryan Wedding is a modern-day iteration of Pablo Escobar; he’s a modern iteration of El Chapo Guzman. … He will not evade justice.” Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, said officials believe he’s being protected by the cartel and others in Mexico. “Please understand that he might change his hair color, his appearance, and do anything to avoid capture,” he said. A surveillance photo of Ryan Wedding provided by the FBI.FBIAttorney General Pam Bondi said Wedding’s organization is responsible for importing about 60 metric tons of cocaine a year into Los Angeles via semi-trucks from Mexico.“He controls one of the most prolific and violent drug-trafficking organizations in this world,” she said. “He is currently the largest distributor of cocaine in Canada.” Over the course of the investigation, Bondi said more than 35 people have been indicted, numerous weapons have been seized, about $3.2 million in cryptocurrency has been recovered, and over $13 million in physical assets have been confiscated. According to the FBI, Wedding’s organization often resorted to violence, including orchestrating the murders of multiple people.Wedding, who represented Canada in the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, was charged in a September 2024 superseding indictment with attempted murder and other counts. Minyvonne BurkeMinyvonne Burke is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News.
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Oct. 4, 2025, 12:00 PM EDTBy Natasha Korecki, Jonathan Allen and Carol E. LeeFormer President Barack Obama has stepped up his criticisms of the Trump administration in recent weeks, weighing in more forcefully and frequently than he did at the start of the president’s second term.It is an intensification that Democrats welcome at a moment when they lack party leadership, even as some say his trademark caution is still getting the better of him.In the last three weeks, Obama called President Donald Trump’s news conference linking Tylenol and autism “violence against the truth,” and he attacked the administration in the wake of comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s initial late-night ouster for taking “cancel culture” to a “new and dangerous level.” After Charlie Kirk’s killing, Obama aggressively called out Trump’s rhetoric, saying the president was further dividing the country. And before the government shutdown, he clapped at Republicans, saying they would “rather shut down the government than help millions of Americans afford health care.”Obama’s headline-grabbing comments come after private conversations over the summer with allies about whether he should speak out more and how he should approach high-stakes White House actions as they unfold, according to two people familiar with the discussions. According to one of the sources, the former president recognizes the gravity of a moment when Trump is seen as stretching the limits of the Constitution, and one former aide said he is cognizant that there is a dearth of party leadership.It’s unclear, however, whether Obama will sustain this pace.A former Obama White House official with knowledge of his team’s thinking said before Obama sat for a series of paid speaking events in recent weeks, his team mulled how to best take advantage of the appearances. At the same time, a flurry of high-profile events transpired, including the Kirk shooting, Kimmel being pulled off the air and the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.“I’m aware there are discussions of ‘Should we be out there more? How are we calibrating?’ Of course they’re asking that, that’s responsible because he’s trying to be thoughtful. It’s fair to say they’re constantly asking themselves, ‘How do we meet this moment?’” the former official said.But that person noted that some of Obama’s newsmaking moments emerged from public appearances that had been on the books for months. “To take that shot is intentional,” the person said of Obama’s rhetoric against Trump. “Don’t get me wrong — that is definitely a choice. But I can’t overstate the extent to which the realities of the opportunities you have on the calendar inputs into your strategy. They reinforce each other.”Obama’s role in the country’s current political discourse has been a topic of conversation — and at times a source of deep frustration — among Democrats since he left office more than eight years ago. While it’s still not enough for some, his cadence in recent weeks is a sharp change from Trump’s first term, when he subscribed to post-presidential norms of not talking about a successor.But this time is arguably unlike any other. Eight months into Trump’s presidency, the Democratic Party remains leaderless, creating a void that Obama is best suited to fill.“The party itself is in the wilderness and I think the last person who can speak with credibility on behalf of Democrats is Obama,” said Ami Copeland, a Democratic strategist who previously served as Obama’s deputy national finance director. “People don’t want to hear from Biden about anything right now. Clinton is still kind of tainted, I think. And the last person who really led a successful campaign that moves the big-tent party is him.”Copeland characterized Obama’s recent public statements as likely coming from a sense of duty.“He still feels a responsibility to not just the party, but more importantly, to the country. I don’t even see that as a partisan comment. That is just [an] ‘I care about the country and babies’ comment,” Copeland said, referencing Obama’s retort on Tylenol. In response to a request for comment on Obama’s recent remarks, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, “Barack Hussein Obama is the architect of modern political division in America — famously demeaning millions of patriotic Americans who opposed his liberal agenda as ‘bitter’ for ‘cling[ing] to guns or religion.’””If he cares about unity in America, he would tell his own party to stop their destructive behavior,” she added.Even as many Democrats point to Obama’s impact, they acknowledge they need to look beyond him if they’re ever to move forward with a new generation of leadership.But for now, they point to Obama’s popularity as giving his words more weight. A Gallup poll in February showed Obama had the highest approval rating among presidents who were still living. A Marquette University Law School poll released last week showed Trump with net minus-15% favorability while Obama enjoyed net 17% favorability. Obama’s discussions on whether to weigh in more publicly on developments out of the Trump administration have included exploring ideas of how, when and in what format, according to the people familiar with the discussions. They characterized the approach as a work in progress, meaning he’s made his views on Trump clear over the past decade, but as the administration rolls out new actions, he’s sought to ensure his approach has an impact.This summer, the former president was called out for clinging to a reserved posture.In June, a headline in The Atlantic asked, “Where is Barack Obama?” and thrashed the former president, casting him as all but sitting on his heels as democracy burned.“No matter how brazen Trump becomes, the most effective communicator in the Democratic Party continues to opt for minimal communication,” the piece stated. “His ‘audacity of hope’ presidency has given way to the fierce lethargy of semi-retirement.”Less than two weeks later, Obama made news at a public event where he warned that the United States was “dangerously close” to slipping into an autocracy. At the time, news pieces found it notable that Obama appeared publicly to speak against Trump at all. But even at that event, no audio or video was allowed, and Obama was cautious and circumspect. He did not mention Trump by name.“Democracy is not self-executing. It requires people, judges, people in the Justice Department, and people throughout the government who take an oath to uphold the Constitution,” Obama said in those remarks. “It requires them to take that oath seriously. When that isn’t happening, we start drifting into something that is not consistent with American democracy. It is consistent with autocracies.”Aides have long said they want to avoid a “dilution” factor with the 44th president, so that he’s not so frequently weighing in on issues that his words lose their impact.In July, Obama’s office did issue a rebuke of Trump after the president accused him of committing “treason” and rigging the 2016 and 2020 elections.“But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,” his office said at the time.To some Democrats, Obama is falling short at a critical time.“Obama has a singular role in impacting the national debate that he is not in any way maxing out right now, at a time when he is most needed,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.Green held up Obama’s signaling of support for California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s effort to match Texas in redrawing its maps mid-decade as the kind of “trickle down” messaging he should take part in to help guide other Democrats.“He has an unmatched ability to cut through the noise and focus in on the Republicans’ most effective arguments, and then completely debunk them, oftentimes with humor that has been devastating for some Republican candidates on the receiving end during campaign season,” Green said. “But we need him to use that same prowess in this moment to help save the country.”As president in 2011, Obama showed no reticence in ripping into Trump for promoting the false claim that Obama had been born outside the U.S. At that year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, Obama mercilessly mocked Trump, who was in the audience, for having little experience in making consequential executive decisions and for peddling conspiracy theories.“Now, I know that he’s taken some flak lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald,” Obama said. “And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter — like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”Trump was visibly irritated during the remarks, and some of his allies say the moment likely factored into his decision to seek the presidency in 2016.To be sure, Obama has for years served as a Trump critic, particularly when shifting to his familiar role as a closer in critical races on the campaign trail for other Democrats. He’s trotted out punchy one-liners, including at the Democratic National Convention when he memorably needled Trump over an obsession with crowd size, then gestured with his hands in a way that made clear he also was referencing Trump’s manhood.In August, it was Obama who acted as the party elder and congratulated Texas Democrats in a video address for standing up to Republicans by leaving their state to deny the GOP a quorum before a redistricting vote. Obama has kept up his advocacy for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, led by his friend and former attorney general Eric Holder.“President Obama has been sounding the alarm about the threat of gerrymandering for a long time. He was integral to the formation of the NDRC and has made our mission a priority in his post-presidency,” NDRC President John Bisognano said in a statement.The recent recalibration of Obama’s comments is in part due to the increasing pace and scale of Trump’s actions, two former aides said.“When I hear not just our current president, but his aides, who have a history of calling political opponents ‘vermin,’ enemies who need to be ‘targeted,’ that speaks to a broader problem that we have right now and something that we’re going to have to grapple with, all of us,” Obama said at a Sept. 17 public appearance before the Jefferson Educational Society, a nonprofit think tank.Before that, he stood out among Democrats for having called New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani in June, even as many of his peers in the party tiptoed around the democratic socialist’s primary win.“He picks and chooses his spots wisely. Sometimes you can watch for so long,” a person who frequently speaks to the former president said. “You won’t see him shadowing this president. He didn’t do it the first four years. There was a lot of crazy then. More crazy now. He’s not going to be a president who spends his time throwing shade on another president, but he’ll certainly lean in when he sees injustices.”While being interviewed onstage in London by British Nigerian historian David Olusoga, Obama last month described Trump’s claims about the link between Tylenol and autism as “violence against the truth.”“We have the spectacle of my successor in the Oval Office, making broad claims around certain drugs and autism that have been continuously disproved. … That undermines public health, the degree to which that can do harm to women who are pregnant,” he said. “That’s why, by the way, it is important for those who believe in the truth and believe in science to also examine truth when it is inconvenient for us.”John Anzalone, who acted as a chief pollster to Obama as well as to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and former President Joe Biden said Democrats are so far in the desert they’re craving a dominant voice to step forward.“More Obama,” Anzalone said, “just like ‘more cowbell,’” referencing a famous “Saturday Night Live” skit.Anzalone argued this moment is unlike others in history, as there is no major oppositional voice breaking through in the same way that then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich could act as a foil to President Bill Clinton when the Republicans were in the minority, for instance.If “he feels more comfortable ratcheting it up, you’re going to see a lot of people cheering, because we feel that it’s kind of leaderless and rudderless,” Anzalone said of Obama. “There’s an audience for President Obama and people do listen, but we also kind of understand that there’s a certain calculus when you’re a former president about what, how often and how loud you speak, and you’ve got to respect that.”Anzalone noted, however, that as much as Democrats want to hear from Obama early and often, new leaders need to emerge, and the party as a whole must find a way to break through to voters moving forward.“It’s good to hear from President Obama but there’s limits to what even he can do fixing the problems of the terrible branding,” Anzalone said. “Individual candidates are going to have to do that. Leaders are going to have to do that.”Natasha KoreckiNatasha Korecki is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.Jonathan AllenJonathan Allen is a senior national politics reporter for NBC News. Carol E. LeeCarol E. Lee is the Washington managing editor.
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