CNN’s Tapper on Pompeo’s Saudia Arabia Trip: What Was Point ‘If They Didn’t Talk About Any of the Facts’

On Wednesday, CNN host Jake Tapper wondered why if Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was not meeting with Saudia Arabian officials to get facts, why he was bothering to travel there at all.

Tapper started by playing a clip of Pompeo as he was leaving Saudi Arabia after meeting with the crown prince in the wake of the disappearance of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi has not been seen since entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul earlier this month. Turkish officials say one inside, he was brutally murdered and his body dismembered.

After being asked by a reporter on the tarmac if Saudi officials indicated if Khashoggi was alive or dead, Pompeo said this: “I don’t want to talk about any of the facts. They didn’t want to either. They want to have the opportunity to complete this investigation in a thorough way.”

Tapper, though, then wondered what was the point of his trip then.

“What was the –??” Tapper said. “I mean, this completely sincerely. What was the point of him going to Saudi Arabia if they didn’t talk about any of the facts?”

CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins then said that was the question that was being raised.

“And that’s who is coming back to brief President Trump, and White House officials are essentially waiting to see what Mike Pompeo is going to say when he gets back after visiting Riyadh and then going to Turkey to talk to officials,” she stressed. “That is why President Trump sent him there. Because initially when all this was happening, President Trump was expressing concern and saying there is going to be severe punishment if it is the Saudis who are responsible for this guy’s death. But then we saw Pompeo go there, and he’s smiling in pictures with MBS[the crown prince].”

She added that Pompeo “can’t even answer the simple question of whether or not this reporter is dead or alive.”

Watch the clip above, courtesy of CNN.

[Featured image via screengrab]

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