President Donald Trump was feted on Tuesday after arriving in Saudi Arabia, which is pulling out all the stops to welcome him on his first foreign trip in his second term, even made a mobile McDonald’s restaurant available to him.
Trump will also visit Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The Trump Organization has lucrative business dealings with the monarchies of all three Gulf states, raising serious questions about his glaring conflicts, which include a $5.5 billion golf resort in Qatar, which gifted Trump a $400 million plane the president says will be used as Air Force One and that he will retain after leaving office.
On Tuesday’s edition of The Source on CNN, Kaitlan Collins asked Maggie Haberman about the trip. Hours earlier, Trump gave a speech in Riyadh that concluded with him being played off the stage to the tune of Y.M.C.A. by The Village People. In Saudi Arabia. Yes. That happened.
“We have not seen the president’s children,” Collins said, hosting from Riyadh. “The White House said they were welcome to come, but we haven’t seen any of them actually accompany him on this visit or his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. We’ve not seen any of them. I wonder just what you’ve noticed about the trip and what has stood out to you in your reporting so far of either expectations going into this or what has
Haberman replied by saying there appears to be a dearth of actual foreign policy objectives for the trip.
“There is no real foreign policy agenda or aim that has been laid out for this trip that I’m aware of,” she said. “Now, yes, the president announced that he is going to halt the sanctions on Syria, and that is significant if that moves ahead. That is a big deal for the region. But in terms of what he is hoping to accomplish with this mission, in terms of the U.S. and its relationships with the region, they haven’t really articulated a longer arc.”
She went on to note the Trump family’s financial ties to the region before remarking on how in his element the president appeared.
“Trump looks about as happy as you can imagine,” Haberman continued. “He is being treated like a king. And we have seen many instances where he has wanted to be treated sort of commensurate with leaders in foreign countries, in autocratic countries, or with autocratic leadership. And he looks as if he is ruling over everything right now.”
Watch above via CNN.