"License should be revoked" Journalist asks courageous questions - Trump puts her down and threatens her broadcaster
Donald Trump has once again clashed with the press. An ABC reporter who asked him questions about the Khashoggi case felt the wrath of the US president.
19.11.2025, 09:21
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- US journalist Mary Bruce incurred the wrath of the powers that be at yesterday's White House press conference with Donald Trump and Mohammed bin Salman.
- Bruce asked Trump about his business dealings with Saudi Arabia and the crown prince following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
- Trump insulted the reporter and threatened her ABC News station with an investigation by the FCC and license revocation.
US President Donald Trump has verbally attacked a journalist from the ABC channel. When senior White House correspondent Mary Bruce questioned him and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi yesterday, Trump called her a "horrible person" and a "terrible reporter".
The president also threatened the broadcaster and described its reporting as "fake". "I think ABC should have their license revoked."
Bruce had initially asked Trump whether it was appropriate for his family to do business in Saudi Arabia. Before he could answer, she directed a question to the crown prince: "Your Royal Highness, the US intelligence services have concluded that you organized the brutal murder of a journalist."
And further: "Why should Americans trust you? And the same question to you, Mr. President."
"Terrible, insubordinate and simply awful question"
The president dismissed the findings of the US intelligence agencies and said many people did not like Khashoggi. Crown Prince Mohammed, for his part, said Khashoggi's death was painful and "a big mistake". Trump later criticized Bruce for asking the prince a "terrible, insubordinate and just awful question".
When she asked why the White House was waiting for approval from Congress before releasing more details about the correspondence of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, he replied: "It's not the question that bothers me," Trump said. "It's your attitude." He continued, "It's the way you ask these questions."
Trump indirectly threatened ABC News with an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC): Its chairman "should look into it". The broadcaster did not initially comment on Trump's statements. On the 14th, Trump called a Bloomberg News reporter on board Air Force One a "piggy".
Columnist Khashoggi, who wrote for the "Washington Post" while in exile in the US, went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, to pick up documents for his marriage to his fiancée. But he never came out. The US foreign intelligence agency CIA later concluded that he had been murdered and dismembered in the consulate on the orders of the crown prince.
After lengthy denials, the leadership in Riyadh admitted under international pressure that the prominent critic of the royal family had been killed in the building in an attempt to return him to his homeland that had gone wrong. Bin Salman declared that he had known nothing about it.
