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“Things happen.” Just two words. That’s all it took for Donald Trump to effectively dismiss what is probably 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.

Background Details

The American leader’s dismissal of the killing of well-known reporter the Washington Post columnist came during a press conference with the Saudi leader, MBS – a man whom the CIA found in a recent assessment had orchestrated the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (Prince Mohammed has rejected accusations.)

The American spy agencies were not the sole entities to conclude the homicide – which took place in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and in which the late Khashoggi was sedated and cut apart – was signed off at the highest levels. An investigation led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached similar conclusions.

Global Reactions

For a short time, nations were in agreement in their condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The US enacted penalties and travel restrictions in 2021 over the murder, although it refrained of penalizing Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the nation has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the leader’s trip to Washington seemed to be the final confirmation of that rehabilitation.

White House Remarks

Critics of the regime had strongly criticized the meeting. But what was on display at the presidential residence was more alarming than could have been anticipated. Not only did the president fete Prince Mohammed but he effectively rewrote the facts – and then blamed the deceased. The crown prince, he claimed when asked, knew nothing about the murder – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own spy agencies determined previously. Moreover, Trump said: “Many individuals disliked that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or disapproved, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This represents a fresh and shameful point for a leader who has made no attempt to hide of his contempt for the truth – or for the media. Trump has smeared reporters (he called ABC news, whose journalist asked the question about the journalist at the media event “fake news”), scolded them in open settings (he called one a “rude name” this week for asking about his connection with the convicted sex offender financier the convicted criminal), sued news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for media groups he disapproves of to lose their licenses.

He has pressured established media out of the White House press pool for declining to use language of his choosing, and he has slashed funding for essential public media at domestically and vital independent media abroad.

Broader Implications

All of that has fostered an atmosphere in which journalists are manifestly less safe in the US, but one in which their victimization – and indeed killing – becomes not just insignificant (“incidents occur”) but tolerated (“a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman”).

It is unsurprising that 2024 was the most lethal year on record for the press in the more than 30 years the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this data: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those accountable for journalist killings has created a environment without consequences in which journalists’ killers are actually able to get away with murder and so persist in these actions.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is accountable for the deaths of over two hundred journalists in the past two years.

Societal Impact

The effect on the public is profound. Targeting reporters are assaults on facts. They are attacks on facts. They are attacks on our rights to know and on our freedom to exist without fear and safely.

On Thursday, CPJ meets for its yearly global journalism honors. The statement there is the same as my one for the president: these things may occur. But it is our duty to make sure they do not.