‘What Happened There?’ NY Times Reporter Asks Trump If He Derailed Saudi Deal with ‘New Conditions’

President Donald Trump was pressed by a New York Times reporter on Friday over whether he had derailed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia by adding a new requirement after administration officials had presented the deal as effectively complete.

During an Oval Office event on domestic nuclear innovation, New York Times reporter Shawn McCreesh pointed to the apparent disconnect between Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s announcement of a civilian nuclear cooperation framework with Saudi officials and Trump’s additional demand days later that Riyadh must first normalize relations with Israel by joining the Abraham Accords.

“I want to ask about the Saudi nuclear deal. This man over your shoulder announces a big deal after 18 months of negotiating with the Saudis, seems like it’s all done and signed and then you come out and throw some new conditions on top of it, the whole thing blows up,” McCreesh said before asking: “Did he get out ahead of you, or what happened there?”

Trump rejected the suggestion that his administration had been out of sync.

“Nobody got out ahead,” he replied.

The exchange came after the administration unveiled a framework for civilian nuclear cooperation with Saudi Arabia before Trump declared that the agreement would only move forward if the kingdom joined the Abraham Accords.

That condition was reportedly not included when the framework was announced. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly maintained that it will not establish formal diplomatic ties with Israel without a credible pathway to Palestinian statehood and has not publicly responded to Trump’s new requirement.

Explaining his position, Trump said: “I just said in order to do it they have to be a member of the Abraham Accords which have been very successful, but it’s time now that they do it. They and others didn’t want to do it because of the problem that they had with Iran. You don’t have that problem anymore. You don’t have a great power there anymore, you have a problem, but the problem is disappearing day by day.”

He continued: “They were the bully in the Middle East. They won’t be that much of a bully anymore. They probably instinctively want to be, but you don’t have the same problem that you would have had four or five months ago before they had no navy, no military, no anti-aircraft, no leaders – I mean, their leaders are gone. A lot of things have changed with respect to that country.”

Trump added that the requirement was central to his administration’s regional strategy.

“So, no, we want them to – it’s a two-way street and we think it’s very important for the future of the Middle East. The Abraham Accords have been incredibly successful, for the countries, as you know, for the countries in them. And I think it’s very important,” he said.

The president predicted Saudi Arabia would eventually join the accords, adding that “they will do their civil, what I call, civil nuclear but that’s what it is, no enrichment, civil nuclear.”

Watch above via Fox News.

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