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“Things happen.” Just two words. That’s all it took for Donald Trump to effectively dismiss what is arguably the most infamous journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his disregard toward journalists, for journalism – and for the facts.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissive attitude of the murder of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi came during a media briefing with the Saudi crown prince, MBS – a man whom the US intelligence found in a 2021 report had ordered the abduction and murder of the journalist in that year. (The crown prince has rejected accusations.)

The American spy agencies were not the sole entities to determine the murder – which occurred in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and in which the 59-year-old Khashoggi was sedated and cut apart – was approved at the highest levels. An investigation led by former UN expert, the UN investigator, reached similar conclusions.

Global Reactions

For a brief period, governments were in agreement in their condemnation of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States enacted penalties and visa bans in that year over the murder, although it refrained of sanctioning the crown prince himself. Since then, the kingdom has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the leader’s trip to Washington seemed to be the final confirmation of that redemption.

Presidential Comments

Opponents of the regime had strongly criticized the visit. But what was on display at the presidential residence was more alarming than could have been anticipated. Not only did Trump fete Prince Mohammed but he effectively rewrote the facts – and then blamed the victim. The crown prince, Trump claimed when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in clear opposition to what his country’s own intelligence services concluded previously. Moreover, Trump said: “A lot of people disliked that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This marks a fresh and shameful low for a president who has made no attempt to hide of his disdain for the truth – or for the press. He has defamed reporters (he called a news network, whose reporter asked the question about Khashoggi at the media event “false information”), scolded them in open settings (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his relationship with the disgraced financier the convicted criminal), sued news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for news outlets he doesn’t like to be shut down.

He has pressured veteran news services out of the official briefing group for declining to use terminology of his choosing, and he has slashed funding for essential public media at home and crucial free press abroad.

Broader Implications

All of that has created an atmosphere in which reporters are clearly more vulnerable in the US, but one in which their targeting – and indeed killing – becomes not just unimportant (“incidents occur”) but acceptable (“a lot of people disliked that person”).

It is unsurprising that that year was the deadliest year on record for journalists in the more than 30 years the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this information: a persistent failure to bring to justice those responsible for reporter murders has established a culture of impunity in which journalists’ killers are actually able to get away with murder and so continue to do so.

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

Societal Impact

The effect on society is profound. Attacks on journalists are assaults on facts. They are attacks on facts. They are attacks on our entitlement to information and on our freedom to live freely and securely.

On Thursday, CPJ meets for its yearly International Press Freedom awards. My message at the event is the same as my message for Trump: these things may happen. But it is our responsibility to make sure they do not.