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“Incidents take place.” Just two words. That’s all it took for the US president to brush off what is probably the most infamous journalist killing of the past ten years – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his disregard toward the press, for the media – and for the truth.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissal of the killing of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi came during a press conference with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the CIA found in a recent assessment had ordered the abduction and murder of the Washington Post columnist in 2018. (Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.)

The American spy agencies were not the sole entities to conclude the homicide – which occurred in the Saudi diplomatic building in Turkey and in which the 59-year-old Khashoggi was drugged and cut apart – was signed off at the highest levels. An investigation led by then UN special rapporteur, the UN investigator, reached comparable findings.

International Response

For a short time, governments were in agreement in their criticism of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States enacted sanctions and visa bans in that year over the murder, although it refrained of penalizing the crown prince himself. Since then, the kingdom has been gradually restoring itself – and the crown prince’s visit to Washington seemed to be the ultimate sign of that rehabilitation.

White House Remarks

Critics of the government had roundly condemned 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 seemed to alter the facts – and then pointed fingers at the deceased. Prince Mohammed, Trump asserted when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in direct contradiction to what his nation’s intelligence services determined four years ago. Moreover, Trump said: “Many individuals didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This represents a new and abject low for a leader who has made little secret of his disdain for the truth – or for the media. He has defamed reporters (he called ABC news, whose reporter asked the question about Khashoggi at the media event “fake news”), berated them in open settings (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein), taken legal action against media organizations for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for media groups he doesn’t like to lose their licenses.

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

Broader Implications

All of that has fostered an environment in which reporters are clearly more vulnerable in the US, but one in which their targeting – and indeed murder – becomes not just insignificant (“things happen”) but acceptable (“a lot of people disliked that gentleman”).

It is no surprise that 2024 was the most lethal year on record for the press in the over three decades the press freedom organization has been tracking this data: a ongoing neglect to hold those accountable for reporter murders has created a environment without consequences in which those who murder reporters are literally 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 deaths of over two hundred media workers in the past two years.

Effect on Society

The impact on the public is deep. Targeting reporters are attacks on the truth. They are attacks on facts. They are violations of our entitlement to information and on our freedom to live freely and safely.

On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its yearly global journalism honors. My message at the event is the identical as my one for Trump: these things may happen. But it is our responsibility to make sure they do not.