Brianna Keilar Pushes John Kirby on Biden’s Saudi Arabia Visit: Will He Condemn Khashoggi Murder as Candidate Biden Did?

CNN’s Brianna Keilar pushed the White House’s John Kirby on President Joe Biden’s upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia next month, asking point-blank whether he would be discussing deceased journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

On Tuesday morning, Keilar played a 2019 clip of then-candidate Biden condemning the slaying of Khashoggi and saying his death was done under the orders of Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince whom he will be meeting with soon. Biden also said at the time that Saudi Arabia should be treated as a “pariah” over the killing.

Kirby said Biden has always been public about his feelings on the death of Khashoggi and said he put in place “accountability measures” in response to the reporter’s slaying. Kirby also referred to Saudi Arabia as a “key partner in the region” on things like energy.

Later, Keilar bluntly asked whether Biden would directly mention the death of Kashoggi to al Salman, considering how passionately he condemned the death in the past. Kirby would not specifically say whether Biden would, though he promised the president would be talking about a “range of human rights issues.”

The president, of course, will be talking about a range of human rights issues too. We always talk about human rights when we go and we visit counterparts around the world. It is a key component of the president’s foreign policy. You can’t have an effective foreign policy without it being rooted in values and the president will obviously represent those values to all counterparts in all means.

Keilar pushed Kirby more when she asked, “Can you assure 9/11 families, who have concerns about early intel that the U.S. was not forthcoming on ties that the 9/11 hijackers had to some Saudi officials, of course, 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, can you reassure those 9/11 families that the president will, as they want, address this bluntly with Saudi leadership?”

Kirby would again not go into specifics about any planned topics between the two world leaders.

“I’m not going to get ahead of specific things that the president will or won’t say in a given room on a trip that hasn’t happened yet, but I can tell you that he keeps them foremost, their concerns, their issues, their grief, their suffering, foremost in his mind and his heart,” Kirby said. “He will never shy away from representing that.”

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