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“Stuff occurs.” A mere phrase. That was enough for Donald Trump to brush off what is arguably the most notorious journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing sank to a fresh depth in his disregard toward journalists, for the media – and for the facts.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissal of the killing of well-known reporter Jamal Khashoggi came during a media briefing with the Saudi leader, MBS – a man whom the US intelligence found in a recent assessment had ordered the abduction and murder of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (Prince Mohammed has rejected accusations.)

The US intelligence services were not the sole entities to conclude the homicide – which took place in the Saudi diplomatic building in Turkey and in which the 59-year-old journalist was drugged and dismembered – was approved at the highest levels. An inquiry led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached similar conclusions.

International Response

For a short time, nations were in agreement in their condemnation of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States enacted penalties and travel restrictions in that year over the killing, although it stopped short of penalizing Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the kingdom has been gradually restoring itself – and the leader’s trip to the US capital seemed to be the ultimate sign of that rehabilitation.

Presidential Comments

Opponents of the regime had strongly criticized the meeting. But what was on display at the presidential residence was more alarming than could have been anticipated. Not only did Trump fete the Saudi leader but he seemed to alter the facts – and then blamed the victim. Prince Mohammed, he claimed when asked, knew nothing about the murder – in clear opposition to what his nation’s intelligence services concluded previously. Moreover, Trump said: “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or disapproved, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This marks a fresh and shameful point for a president who has made no attempt to hide of his contempt for the truth – or for the media. Trump has defamed reporters (he called ABC news, whose journalist asked the question about the journalist at the Saudi press conference “false information”), berated them in public (he called one a “rude name” this week for asking about his relationship with the convicted sex offender financier Jeffrey Epstein), sued news outlets for large amounts of money in frivolous cases, and called for news outlets he disapproves of to lose their licenses.

He has forced established media out of the official briefing group for refusing to use language of his choosing, and he has gutted financial support for essential public media at home and vital independent media abroad.

Broader Implications

All of that has fostered an atmosphere in which journalists are clearly more vulnerable in the United States, but one in which their victimization – and indeed murder – becomes not just unimportant (“things happen”) but acceptable (“many individuals didn’t like that person”).

It is unsurprising that 2024 was the most lethal year on record for journalists in the more than 30 years the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this data: a persistent failure to bring to justice those accountable for reporter murders has established a environment without consequences in which those who murder reporters are literally able to get away with murder and so persist in these actions.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Israel, which is accountable for the deaths of over two hundred journalists in the past two years.

Societal Impact

The impact on society is profound. Targeting reporters are assaults on facts. They are attacks on facts. They are attacks on our rights to know and on our liberty to exist without fear and safely.

This week, CPJ gathers for its yearly International Press Freedom awards. The statement at the event is the same as my one for the president: these things may happen. But it is our responsibility to make sure they do not.