Biden ripped on MSNBC for granting immunity to Saudi crown prince in Khashoggi killing: 'Disturbing'

Journalists on MSNBC sharply criticized President Joe Biden's decision to grant immunity to the Saudi Arabia's crown prince as part of a "disturbing" and "embarrassing" trend in his relationship with the Middle Eastern country.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius was stunned by the Biden Administration's last-minute decision to shield Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) from a civil lawsuit he faced over the 2018 killing of the late Washington Post contributor, Jamal Khashoggi. Last year, the Biden administration declassified a report blaming the crown prince for the U.S.-based journalist's death.

Ignatius noted that even President Trump refused to give immunity to the authoritarian leader, on Friday's "Morning Joe."

"What's disturbing here is that the decision to elevate him to prime minister…came three days before the deadline that Judge Bates had set for a ruling on this question from the Justice Department and the State Department of whether he was entitled to immunity. In other words, this was the only way he was going to get it, and it came in at the 11th hour. The Trump administration, for all of its embrace of MBS, never gave him the immunity he wanted," the journalist began.

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He added, "He has been seeking immunity since 2020, 2021. The Trump administration left office without acting on that request. And it's disturbing that the Biden administration ends up doing what Donald Trump himself wouldn't do."

Axios correspondent Jonathan Swan tied Biden's decision to the fraught U.S. relationship with the Middle Eastern country over oil. 

Swan blasted the president for vowing to make Saudi Arabia a "pariah" on the campaign trail and then having this "dizzying reversal when gas prices rise," as one of the "most incoherent elements of Joe Biden's policy agenda."

"Then the fist bump, then the retraction, it's just completely incoherent. It's hard to know where he stands on this policy," he huffed.

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Over the Summer, Biden was criticized for giving a fist bump to the Saudi leader during his visit to the Middle East and refusing to say if he confronted the prince for ordering the killing of Khashoggi. 

Ignatius agreed with Swan that the president's inconsistent dealings with the Saudis was "deeply embarrassing" and "humiliating."

"Deeply embarrassing, and I want to say humiliating for Biden to have gone seeking support from MBS and to have gotten – basically got the back of his hand. No support on oil at a time when it's strategically critical," he argued.

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Last month, the Saudi-led Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced it would cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day. President Biden reacted by warning the country there would be "consequences" for the decision. He also reportedly asked the country to wait until after the midterm elections to make the cut, a request they did not honor.

Critics of the president's energy policies have argued that our reliance on oil from foreign countries has led to high gas prices here in the United States.