Each day the White House press corps gets a copy of the president’s schedule. Yesterday’s schedule made no mention of a meeting between Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia’s Vice Minister of Defense, Khalid bin Salman. In fact, the meeting was kept completely under wraps until this tweet from Prince Khalid’s own account.
The White House Correspondent’s Association (WHCA) had a strong reaction to the way this news trickled out.
It wasn’t until the WHCA asked for a comment from the White House that Trump put out this tweet.
So far there is no official statement from the White House about the meeting or why it wasn’t listed on Trump’s schedule.
Prince Salman is the son of Saudi’s King Salman and younger brother of the crown prince Mohammad bin Salman. AXIOS writes about why this matters:
Saudi Arabia is deeply concerned it could become engulfed in uncontrolled escalation between the U.S. and Iran following President Trump’s decision to kill Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani. That explains the decision to urgently dispatch Prince Khalid to Washington.