The Briefing with Jen Psaki
Real purpose of Trump's Mideast trip comes into focus as his explanations fall apart under scrutiny
Wed, 14 May 2025
Jen Psaki takes a closer look at Donald Trump's specious explanations and dubious promises as he heads on a trip through the Middle East where his personal business interests seem more relevant than the business of the United States.
Chapter 1: Why are disability advocates protesting on Capitol Hill?
Okay, everyone, I mean, this was the scene on Capitol Hill today. Members of the disability community, you can see them right there in the video, showed up at a House committee meeting to protest Republicans' proposed changes to Medicaid in their budget bill, changes that the Congressional Budget Office says could cause millions of Americans to lose insurance coverage. What better to protest?
Now, the people there, you can see them all. They're voicing their freedom of speech right there. They interrupted the meeting with shouts of, no cuts to Medicaid, no cuts to Medicaid, and were promptly escorted out of the building by police officers. 25 of them were arrested. And then, even after all that, Republicans went forward with their first step toward enacting those Medicaid cuts.
And that all created what I would consider quite a split-screen moment today, because as those concerned citizens you just saw protesting in the House what the impact of Medicaid cuts would be on their lives and many of the lives of their friends and colleagues around the country, where was Donald Trump?
Well, the President of the United States was nearly 7,000 miles away, sitting in a gilded palace surrounded by billionaires.
Now, the stated reason for his visit to Saudi Arabia and his palling around with the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS, and a man perhaps best known for personally approving the murder of an American journalist, was to get them to invest in American businesses.
Trump claimed at the outset of his trip that he was going to get the Saudis to invest a whopping $1 trillion in the US, which is a lot of money. But it turns out his math was pretty far off, because MBS said his country plans to invest $600 billion in the US, well short of Trump's $1 trillion figure. Still a lot of money. Still a lot of money.
But there are more wrinkles to it, because the New York Times looked into this, and they noted neither the Trump numbers or the Saudi numbers are remotely even possible. Here's what they said. The figure Mr. Trump is seeking exceeds the value of all assets in the kingdom's hefty sovereign wealth fund, meaning there's no way they can come up with that money.
One expert told The Times, quote, I don't see how they get anywhere close to $600 billion, let alone $1 trillion. That's where we are with the math. Then that leads us to today. When Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia, he was met with big signs boasting that the Saudis would be investing $300 billion. You can see the sign right there. They literally made that signage in advance in the US.
I mean, they made it, but they made it for the trip. Now, that is obviously quite a bit less. It's actually less than a third of what Trump originally said. Let's be honest, this is something we have come to expect, right, from Donald Trump. He loves to move the goalposts, and he's moved them constantly all the course of the time he's been in office, certainly during his first administration.
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Chapter 2: What is the purpose of Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia?
It's quite a campaign ad I can visualize with a $400 million cuttery plane just flying next to a person running for office. Senator Adam Schiff, thank you so much. Really appreciate you joining us. We'll be following this effort to get the IG to investigate very closely. And coming up, what are you supposed to do when a foreign power offers you a lavish gift?
This is a question we really need to understand these days. Well, my friend Ben Rhodes has some unique insight to offer on that topic. And spoiler alert, I promise you he did not keep the briefcase full of jewels when he found them in his hotel room in Saudi Arabia. But we'll talk about it when we come back.
We've obviously never seen anything remotely close to a foreign country gifting an American president a free – it's not really free to the taxpayer, by the way – $400 million luxury plane. But big oil rich nations have been showering U.S. politicians with lavish gifts for decades. This goes way back.
I mean, in 1985, Saudi Arabia gave Ronald Reagan a gold and enamel egg with a tiny bejeweled clock inside. You can see it right there on your screen. The country of Azerbaijan gifted the Clintons in 1997 a fancy rug emblazoned with their portraits on it. There you go. That's special.
In 2008, Libya's leader, Muammar Gaddafi, gave Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a massive diamond ring, massive, and a locket with an outline of the African continent and a picture of Gaddafi as a much, much younger man. You can see it there on your screen. It was well known he also had a bit of a crush on her, and it definitely shows with that gift.
But government officials and even presidents don't get to keep those gifts unless they pay for them out of pocket. So unless Secretary Rice forked over a bunch of cash, she is not currently the owner of that massive diamond ring. It's the government's property. And the U.S. government can choose to donate, sell, or otherwise dispose of gifts like that if they see fit.
Or they can be loaned out to presidential libraries. Now, I remember this all made me think about one particular trip back in 2009 when President Obama went to Saudi Arabia. And the king gave gifts, big ones, not just to the Obamas, but to several of his advisors, including Ben Rhodes, who wrote about it in his book, The World As It Is.
And he wrote about what was waiting for him in his room on that trip when he returned from a day of meetings. Here's what he wrote. When I opened the door to my unit, I found a large suitcase. Inside were jewels. Now, pivotally, he explains, no one kept them.
It feels like this White House, I think it's safe to say, is approaching things a little bit differently, but it felt worth discussing how this is supposed to work. So joining me now is Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Advisor for President Obama and someone I trust as much as anybody to explain foreign policy stuff like this and many other things. Okay, Ben, I was not on this trip.
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Chapter 3: How accurate are Trump's investment claims from Saudi Arabia?
It's what's in the interest of Donald Trump and his associates and kind of those business people that are in the room in Saudi Arabia. Like that's the world order that they want, where there's a kind of oligarchy on top of billionaires and business people and royals and the Trump family. And the rest of us are just kind of on the outside looking in.
Ben Rhodes, I always love talking to you. Every time I talk to you, I think people know what it was like to call you when we were working together. It's always helpful. Thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.
Coming up, her name is Dr. Alondra Nelson, and today she announced she is resigning in protest from her positions at the National Science Foundation and the Library of Congress. She says she will not sit idly by as the White House threatens the foundational tenets of our democracy. And she joins me live for her first TV interview to talk about all of it when we come right back.
The president fired the Librarian of Congress. Why did he choose to do that?
We felt she did not fit the needs of the American people. There were quite concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.
So that was the answer that the White House gave last week when a reporter asked why Trump had fired Carla Hayden, the long serving Librarian of Congress. Now, despite what her answer seems to suggest, the Library of Congress is not a lending library. While it holds tens of millions of publications and manuscripts, presidential papers, and other material, it doesn't loan books out to children.
And if Caroline Levitt really doesn't understand why the Library of Congress holds books she doesn't like, here is a quick civic education film to bring her up to speed, courtesy, of course, of the U.S. government.
Have you ever heard of the Library of Congress, Tim? It's the most important library in the country. And one of the things it does nowadays is keep records and proofs of all the copyrights that are issued by the United States. Two copies of almost every book that is published are sent to the library at Washington.
That's right. The Copyright Office is part of the Library of Congress, so it has a whole lot of books, including ones the Trump administration may not like. That's part of its purpose. It also houses the Congressional Research Service, an agency that works exclusively for Congress to provide confidential policy and legal analysis to lawmakers regardless of party.
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