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“Stuff occurs.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for the US president to brush off what is arguably the most infamous 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 truth.

Background Details

The American leader’s dismissive attitude of the killing of prominent journalist the Washington Post columnist came during a press conference with the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the US intelligence found in a 2021 report had ordered the abduction and murder of the Washington Post columnist in 2018. (The crown prince has denied involvement.)

The US intelligence services were not the only ones to determine the homicide – which occurred in the Saudi consulate in Turkey and in which the 59-year-old Khashoggi was drugged and dismembered – was approved at the top echelons. An inquiry led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached similar conclusions.

International Response

For a short time, nations were in agreement in their condemnation of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States imposed penalties and visa bans in 2021 over the murder, although it refrained of penalizing the crown prince himself. Since then, the kingdom has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the crown prince’s visit to Washington seemed to be the final confirmation of that rehabilitation.

Presidential Comments

Opponents of the government had roundly condemned the visit. But what was evident at the White House was more alarming than could have been anticipated. Not only did the president fete Prince Mohammed but he seemed to alter history – and then pointed fingers at the deceased. Prince Mohammed, he claimed when asked, was unaware about the murder – in clear opposition to what his nation’s intelligence services concluded four years ago. Moreover, Trump said: “Many individuals didn’t like that person that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or didn’t like him, incidents occur.”

Pattern of Behavior

This represents a fresh and shameful low for a president who has made little secret of his disdain for the truth – or for the media. He has defamed reporters (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the question about the journalist at the Saudi press conference “fake news”), scolded them in public (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein), sued news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for news outlets he doesn’t like to lose their licenses.

He has pressured established media out of the official briefing group for declining to use terminology of his preference, and he has gutted financial support for essential public media at domestically and vital independent media abroad.

Wider Consequences

All of that has fostered an environment in which journalists are clearly more vulnerable in the United States, but one in which their victimization – and indeed killing – becomes not just unimportant (“incidents occur”) but tolerated (“many individuals didn’t like that gentleman”).

It is unsurprising that 2024 was the most lethal year on file 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 accountable for reporter murders has created a culture of impunity in which journalists’ killers are actually able to escape punishment and so continue to do so.

In no place is this more evident than in Israel, which is responsible for the killing of more than 200 media workers in the recent period.

Societal Impact

The impact on society is deep. Attacks on journalists are attacks on the truth. They are attacks on facts. They are attacks on our rights to know and on our liberty to exist without fear and securely.

On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists meets for its annual International Press Freedom awards. The statement at the event is the identical as my message for Trump: such events may happen. But it is our duty to make sure they do not.