Democracy Now • Nov 26, 2025
"From Apartheid to Democracy": Sarah Leah Whitson on New Book, Israel, Gaza & Trump-MBS Meeting
During a controversial Oval Office meeting last week, President Trump defended Mohammed bin Salman when a reporter asked about the Saudi crown prince’s involvement in the 2018 murder of Washington Post opinion columnist Jamal Khashoggi. “The man sitting in the White House next to President Trump is a murderer,” says Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of DAWN, an organization founded by Khashoggi in 2018. To Whitson, Trump’s main motivation for cozying up to Saudi Arabia is financial. “The U.S. government [is] promising to deploy American men and women soldiers to defend the Saudi crown prince … in exchange for profits for U.S. companies, U.S. businesses and U.S. officials.”