Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancée Hatice Cengiz slammed President Biden on Friday for his meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, saying Biden owns the “blood” of the prince’s “next victim” — as members of both parties slammed Biden for giving the royal a fist bump in greeting.
Cengiz, a Turkish researcher, was preparing to wed the Washington Post columnist when he was murdered in 2018 inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
She tweeted a photo of Biden fist-bumping bin Salman, who is widely known by his initials MBS, when the president arrived Friday at the royal palace in Jeddah.
Cengiz drafted a mocked-up tweet that she said her late lover would have written which read: “Hey @POTUS, Is this the accountability you promised for my murder? The blood of MBS’s next victim is on your hands.”
Biden also came under withering criticism from the Washington Post, which endorsed him in 2020, and from Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
“The fist bump between President Biden and Mohammed bin Salman was worse than a handshake — it was shameful,” said Fred Ryan, the Washington Post’s publisher and CEO.
“It projected a level of intimacy and comfort that delivers to MBS the unwarranted redemption he has been desperately seeking,” Ryan said.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House intelligence committee, tweeted: “If we ever needed a visual reminder of the continuing grip oil-rich autocrats have on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, we got it today. One fist bump is worth a thousand words.”
Biden chose to patch up relations with MBS as record-high gas prices have caused his approval rating to nosedive — with 64% of Democrats telling New York Times pollsters they want a new presidential candidate in 2024.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) tweeted: “A fist bump for the Saudis and the middle finger to Texas, Colorado, Alaska, North Dakota, and New Mexico, who stand ready to produce the oil Biden is begging Saudi Arabia for. America LAST.”
Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, has been outspoken in protesting Biden’s attempt to thaw relations with the 36-year-old de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, the columnist’s wife at the time of his death, asked Biden to use the opportunity to press for “the immediate release of all opinion prisoners and not to ban them from traveling.”
In hastily scheduled remarks Friday evening, Biden said he brought up Khashoggi’s murder at the top of his meeting with the crown prince, who Biden said denied personal responsibility.
There was no way of knowing if the conversation unfolded as Biden said it did, since the media were removed from the room prior to the start of the meeting.
Before the discussion got underway in earnest, NBC reporter Peter Alexander shouted at MBS: “Jamal Khashoggi, will you apologize to his family?”
MBS smirked, but did not respond.
The US intelligence community has assessed that the crown prince ordered the operation that killed Khashoggi amid a broader crackdown on dissidents. The Turkish government said his body was dismembered with a bone saw.
