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“Stuff occurs.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for Donald Trump to brush off what is arguably the most infamous journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his contempt for journalists, for the media – and for the facts.

The Context

The American leader’s dismissal of the killing of prominent journalist the Washington Post columnist came during a media briefing with the Saudi crown prince, MBS – a man whom the US intelligence concluded in a 2021 report had ordered the abduction and murder of the journalist in 2018. (Prince Mohammed has rejected accusations.)

The US intelligence services were not the sole entities to determine the murder – which occurred in the Saudi diplomatic building in Turkey and in which the late Khashoggi was sedated and cut apart – was approved at the highest levels. An investigation led by former UN expert, Agnès Callamard, reached comparable findings.

Global Reactions

For a brief period, governments were unified in their condemnation of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States enacted sanctions and visa bans in that year over the killing, although it refrained of sanctioning the crown prince himself. Since then, the nation has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the leader’s trip to Washington seemed to be the final confirmation of that rehabilitation.

White House Remarks

Critics of the government had strongly criticized the meeting. But what was evident at the presidential residence was more alarming than could have been imagined. Not only did the president fete the Saudi leader but he effectively rewrote history – and then blamed the deceased. The crown prince, he asserted when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own intelligence services concluded previously. Moreover, Trump said: “A lot of people didn’t like that person that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This represents a new and abject low for a leader who has made no attempt to hide of his disdain for the truth – or for the press. Trump has defamed journalists (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the question about the journalist at the media event “false information”), scolded them in public (he called one a “rude name” this week for asking about his connection with the convicted sex offender financier the convicted criminal), sued news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in frivolous cases, and called for media groups he doesn’t like to lose their licenses.

He has forced veteran news services out of the White House press pool for declining to use terminology of his preference, and he has slashed financial support for vital news services at domestically and vital independent media abroad.

Broader Implications

All of that has fostered an atmosphere in which journalists are manifestly less safe in the US, but one in which their victimization – and indeed murder – becomes not just insignificant (“things happen”) but acceptable (“many individuals disliked that person”).

It is no surprise that 2024 was the deadliest year on file for journalists in the over three decades the press freedom organization has been tracking this data: a persistent failure to hold those responsible for journalist killings has established a culture of impunity in which journalists’ killers are actually able to escape punishment and so continue to do so.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is responsible for the killing of over two hundred media workers in the recent period.

Effect on Society

The effect on the public is deep. Attacks on journalists are assaults on facts. They are undermining of reality. They are violations of our entitlement to information and on our freedom to live freely and safely.

On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its annual global journalism honors. My message at the event is the identical as my one for Trump: these things may happen. But it is our responsibility to make sure they cease.