‘Don’t See Our Benefit’: Fox News Host Rips Apart Saudi Deal Trump Just Struck

“Fox and Friends” host Brian Kilmeade ripped President Donald Trump’s new deal with Saudi Arabia to provide the country with a civilian nuclear program.

Kilmeade on Thursday questioned whether future leaders of the Islamic state would be as cooperative with the U.S. as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“Look, MBS seems to have emerged as somebody we can trust. I don’t know who’s next. His rise was very unlikely,” Kilmeade said. “If you told people that this guy, this unknown prince, was gonna rise and be the progressive, the open thinker that he is, and move that country in a way that nobody thought possible, caught us by surprise.”

“Progressive” may be the wrong word to describe bin Salman, given that U.S. intelligence pointed to him as having ordered the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

Kilmeade also said that he didn’t see the upside for the U.S. in the deal Trump struck.

“I love the progress Saudi Arabia has made. But I don’t see our benefit to letting them enrich [uranium]. I think it’s a bad trend,” he said.

Co-host Kayleigh McEnany raised the question of whether Saudi Arabia would join the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel.

As if he’d been watching the broadcast, which he is well known to do, Trump posted a message online shortly after the show ended, clarifying that he expects a condition of the deal to be Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with Israel.

“The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!) being made between the United States Department of Energy and Saudi Arabia, which pertains only to non-military use such as the ones that Iran and UAE (and others) already have, will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The United States is not opposed to Civil (Non-Enriched) Nuclear Facilities. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

In the past, Saudi Arabia has made it clear that it will not normalize relations with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state, something the far-right Netanyahu government has said numerous times will not happen.

Saudi Arabia has not yet responded to Trump’s post.

Watch the full clip from Thursday’s “Fox and Friends” here: