Former Obama administration State Department senior advisor Nayyera Haq revealed the private economic considerations behind the President Donald Trump's refusal to confront Saudi Arabia over the suspected murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi during at Saturday morning appearance on MSNBC's "AM Joy" program.
Reports have indicated that the Saudi government sent a hit squad of assassins to murder Khashoggi inside their consulate in Turkey and that President Donald Trump may have learned about the plot within 5 minutes. It has also been reported they made a proof of death tape.
"Our foreign policy is being run by a man who values close political and business ties over anything that has to do with real national security interests," Haq explained to host Joy Reid. "He has business interests in Riyadh, the capital, and Jeddah, about his hotels which pre-date him becoming president, part of why he went there as his first trip."
"The Saudis realized very early on all they had to do was just flatter and court him -- again, this a common theme of people that Trump decides to play nice with," she continued. "And in return, what they've gotten is a relationship between two crown princes ... Mohammed bin Salman on the one side and Jared Kushner on the other."
Haq focused on the fact that Saudi Arabia has refused to speak to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.
"And Jared Kushner is the first to take a phone call on this and the Saudis -- once this erupted in the media, because of intrepid reporting, not because of information coming from the White House -- the Saudis insisted they would only speak with Jared Kushner, they would not talk to Pompeo, they would not talk to Nikki Haley."
"It's not standard practice for anybody in the administration to have high-level phone calls on hot button crises issues and not have those read out to the press," the former White House staffer reminded.
"The fact that Jared Kushner is leading this shows that the Trump administration is far more concerned about maintaining it's personal relationship with Saudi Arabia than any security interest in the United States," she concluded.
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