The details of President Donald Trump’s nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia caused alarm bells to ring out on CNN on Thursday.
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CNN’s Erin Burnett and Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA) discussed a new report during a segment on “OutFront” that the Trump company has been awarded a $63 billion development opportunity in Saudi Arabia, and that award happened around the same time that the Trump administration was negotiating with the Saudis in a deal that allows the country to enrich nuclear energy for civilian purposes. The company that awarded the development agreement is also linked to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin-Salman, who has also invested in Jared Kushner’s $2 billion hedge fund during the first Trump administration.
It also noted that Trump gets to keep 80% ownership in the development deal himself, while his family gets the remaining 20%.
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Burnett was taken aback by the report.
“It’s stunning,” Burnett said about the report. “Congressman, the White House [told] Forbes there are no conflicts of interest. What do you say?”
Walkinshaw did not mince words in his reaction.
“Clearly, we have a president of the United States, Donald Trump, who has been bought and paid for by MBS and the Saudi royal family,” Walkinshaw said. “As the American people struggle to make ends meet, Donald Trump is raking it in. And it appears, at least initially, [he’s] giving them in return a much sweeter nuclear deal, quite frankly, than was on the table in the Biden administration with much weaker inspections, at least initially without a commitment to join the Abraham Accords. The Saudis must have been feeling like they were getting what they paid for.”
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