Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) didn't mince words on Tuesday while discussing Saudi Arabia's role in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
In October, Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to pick up a paper for his upcoming wedding, and once inside, a visiting Saudi hit squad killed him. The CIA has "high confidence" the murder was ordered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. McConnell called the killing "completely abhorrent to everything the United States holds dear and stands for in the world. So some kind of response to that certainly would be in order, and we're discussing what the appropriate response should be." This could include sanctioning Saudi officials or placing restrictions on future arms sales, NPR reports.
In an interview Tuesday with The Washington Post, President Trump refused to pin Khashoggi's murder on the crown prince. "Maybe he did and maybe he didn't" order it, Trump said. "But he denies it. And people around him deny it. And the CIA did not say affirmatively he did it, either, by the way. I'm not saying that they're saying he didn't do it, but they didn't say it affirmatively."