Jon Decker weighs in on ABC's Mary Bruce's question for Saudia Arabia's Crown Prince

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
John Decker joins, is now our White House correspondent, John,
I want to get to real quick a couple of
things going on at the White House. One, the Crown
Prince was there yesterday and ABC News reporter jumped on
that Jamal Shogy story from back in twenty eighteen where
Osama bin Lad used to Saudi to kill this reporter
and the Saudi Prince was kind of accused by her.
How did you feel that went there in that room?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Well, look, you know, I have no issue as it
relates to a reporter doing their job asking questions. People
may differ as to whether that was the time and
place to ask that question. People may differ as to
whether or not they like the tone of the question,
but the question itself, the content of the question was fair.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
You know.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
After all, I don't know if you have talked about
this already, JT.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
But in the aftermath of the.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
CIA determining that MBS Mohammed Bensman ordered the killing of
that Washington Post reporter, the entire Senate, including every Republican senator,
condemned MBS. So you know, for me, uh, this is
not a person who you know, is clean hands, so
to speak.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
In coming to the Oval office.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
And you know, that was what Mary Bruce, that ABC
reporter decided to ask the President yesterday.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah, he responded to it. The Crown Prince did actually
and said, look, you know, Osama bin Laden hired to
Saudi and it was not us that did this, So
I don't know, you know, he tried to you.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Know, put, well, that's two different things.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
He was referring to Osama bin Lauden uh, and he
was referring to why it's important that Saudi Arabia have
a strong has a strong relationship with the United States.
He also responded separately to what Mary Bruce asked about
the murder of Jamal Kashogi and said, he said, you know,
we investigated it, uh, and it won't happen again. But

(01:44):
you know, didn't really direct directly answer her question. But
there were a few questions that were a part of
Mary Bruce's question to the President and to the Crown
Prince of Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Quickly, we got the vote yesterday. Now what we did, Epstein, Fine.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Now, well, I would expect the President to sign that
legislation sooner rather than later. There's only one item on
the President's schedule. Today, he's going to attend at the
Kennedy Center Saudi US Business Summit, Investment Summit. There are
no items on the President's schedule tomorrow, so I would
think that today or tomorrow the President will sign that legislation.

(02:19):
We'll see whether it's an open prece event. But there's
nearly no reason to hold on to this bill, you know,
to let it languish in any way. Just sign it
and you know, release the information. And as you know,
it passed overwhelmingly in the House. Only one vote was
against releasing this information that the Department of Justice has,
and it passed by unanimous consent in the US Senate.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
All right, very good, John Decker at the White House.
Thank you, John, I appreciate you, buddy,