Saudi Prince MBS was reportedly kicked out of US President Joe Biden’s penchant after allegedly mocking Biden.
The de facto leader of the Saudi Kingdom and presumptive heir to King Salman bin Adulaziz, Prince Mohammed bin Salman allegedly ridiculed the US President’s gaffes and questioned his mental capacity, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The report cited sources within the Saudi government who claimed that Prince MBS allegedly said that he was thoroughly not impressed by the US President’s leadership and claimed that he preferred dealing with former President Donald Trump.
Amid the controversy, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre released a statement, slamming Saudi prince MBS.
In an interview with Toluse Olorunnipa of the Washington Post during a press conference on Monday, Jean-Pierre blasted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, calling his controversial statement, “ridiculous.”
“Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s 37-year-old day-to-day ruler, mocks President Biden in private, making fun of the 79-year-old’s gaffes and questioning his mental acuity”
via the Journal team that’s been all over this story. https://t.co/lvAIZrK9pw— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) October 24, 2022
Initially, when asked about the issue, the House press secretary told Olorunnipa that “I don’t have any comments on that.”
However, a few moments later, she took back what she said and criticized the Saudi Prince saying, “Actually, let me say something about your first question. I’m not going to comment about, you know, kind of ridiculous statements. I’m not going to comment on that.”
“But I’ll be very clear: the president has been very clear since the beginning of this administration that we have to review our relationship with Saudi Arabia. And so that is something that we’re going to continue to review and once we have something to share, we will certainly share that.” Jean-Pierre lamented.
She then went on and said, “the decisions that OPEC+ made recently, we saw that as them aligning with Russia, and that is going to hurt many economies across the globe. The president is going to have more to say on that and when he does, you’ll hear directly from him.”
After the controversy, Prince Faisal released a statement where he denied the allegations that Prince Mohammed had privately made fun of Biden or told aides he favored his predecessor.
“These allegations made by anonymous sources are entirely false. The kingdom’s leaders have always held the utmost respect for U.S. presidents, based on the kingdom’s belief in the importance of having a relationship based on mutual respect.” Faisal said in a statement.
