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“Things happen.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for Donald Trump to effectively dismiss what is arguably the most notorious journalist killing of the past ten years – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his contempt for the press, for the media – and for the facts.

The Context

The US president’s dismissal of the murder of prominent journalist the Washington Post columnist came during a press conference with the Saudi leader, MBS – a man whom the CIA concluded in a 2021 report had ordered the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in 2018. (The crown prince has rejected accusations.)

The American spy agencies were not the only ones to determine the murder – which occurred in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and in which the 59-year-old Khashoggi was drugged and dismembered – was signed off at the highest levels. An investigation led by then UN special rapporteur, the UN investigator, reached comparable findings.

International Response

For a short time, governments were unified in their condemnation of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States enacted penalties and travel restrictions in 2021 over the murder, although it refrained of penalizing the crown prince himself. Since then, the kingdom has been gradually restoring itself – and the crown prince’s visit to the US capital seemed to be the final confirmation of that redemption.

Presidential Comments

Critics of the government had roundly condemned the visit. But what was evident at the White House was worse than could have been imagined. Not only did Trump fete Prince Mohammed but he seemed to alter the facts – and then pointed fingers at the deceased. The crown prince, he claimed when asked, knew nothing about the murder – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own intelligence services concluded previously. Moreover, the president said: “A lot of people disliked that person that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, incidents occur.”

Pattern of Behavior

This represents a new and abject point for a president who has made little secret of his contempt for the truth – or for the press. Trump has defamed journalists (he called ABC news, whose reporter asked the inquiry about Khashoggi at the Saudi press conference “false information”), scolded them in open settings (he called one a “rude name” this week for asking about his relationship with the convicted sex offender financier the convicted criminal), sued news outlets for large amounts of money in frivolous cases, and called for news outlets he doesn’t like to lose their licenses.

He has forced established media out of the official briefing group for declining to use language of his preference, and he has slashed funding for essential public media at domestically and crucial free press internationally.

Broader Implications

All of that has created an environment in which journalists are manifestly less safe in the US, but one in which their targeting – and indeed killing – becomes not just unimportant (“incidents occur”) but acceptable (“many individuals disliked that person”).

It is no surprise that 2024 was the deadliest year on record for the press in the over three decades the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this data: a ongoing neglect to hold those responsible for reporter murders has established a environment without consequences in which journalists’ killers are actually able to escape punishment and so persist in these actions.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is accountable for the killing of over two hundred media workers in the recent period.

Societal Impact

The effect on society is deep. Targeting reporters are assaults on facts. They are undermining of reality. They are violations of our entitlement to information and on our liberty to exist without fear and securely.

This week, CPJ meets for its yearly International Press Freedom awards. The statement at the event is the identical as my message for the president: such events may occur. But it is our duty to make sure they do not.