August 2015: “Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much. I make a lot of money from them. They buy all sorts of my stuff. All kinds of toys from Trump. They pay me millions and hundred of millions.”

October 2018: “For the record, I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter). Any suggestion that I have is just more FAKE NEWS (of which there is plenty)!”

In 2001 the Saudi government bought an entire floor in Trump World Tower in New York City, for $4.5 million (present value = $6.2 million).  In addition, common charges for that floor paid by the Saudis to Trump’s company will have been at least $5.7 million.

In 1988 Trump himself had paid a reported $29 million for a 281-foot yacht, the Nabila, which had been originally built for Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi arms dealer, but was owned by the Sultan of Brunei at the time of Trump’s purchase. Khashoggi, now dead, was a cousin to Jamal Khashoggi.

In 1991, while going through what was one of a series of financial squeezes in his career as a real estate mogul and casino operator, Trump sold the big boat, since renamed “Trump Princess,” to Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. And he sold it at a loss: $20 million.

And last, but not least, in a quarterly report to investors in Trump Hotel …

“Saudi-based customers had booked 218 nights at Trump Chicago this year — a 169 percent increase from the same period in 2016.”

So yeah, he has significant financial interests with the Saudis. I find it all rather intriguing … we know he lies, so no surprise there, but … this is so easily proven as a blatant and significant lie … and he refers to ‘fake news’???So now, Trump does not want any sanctions against Saudi Arabia in retaliation for the brutal murder of U.S. journalist Jamal Khashoggi earlier this month, because he is determined to follow through with U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia.  Now, I ask you, why do we want to sell arms to the Saudis?  15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi nationals, and Trump himself said, in February 2017, “Who blew up the World Trade Center? It wasn’t the Iraqis, it was Saudi – take a look at Saudi Arabia, open the documents.”  And now, they have murdered an American resident, a journalist for The Washington Post – brutally murdered and beheaded, if the Turkish officials are correct.

Yemen school bus August 2018

So why do we want to sell weapons to this sort of government?  What does Trump think the Saudis plan to do with those weapons, use them as what-nots to decorate the shelves in the Shadda Palace?  No, they will use them to kill people.  Perhaps even us or our friends.  In August, the Saudis dropped an American-made bomb on a school bus in Yemen that killed 40 children.  Is the U.S. now supporting terrorism?  Sometimes human lives need to matter more than greed, more than money in the pockets of rich, greedy capitalists.  Sometimes we ought to think before we start lining people’s pockets.

The following John Oliver clip is well worth spending 18 minutes watching, for he sums up the situation far better than I have managed to do, and it gave me a better understanding of the relationship between Trump & Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, than I had before.  Although John Oliver is a comedian, he is also an astute political observer.  Please watch …