Biden showed Saudis can buy reputation with oil, money, they take advantage of the energy situation

During the Wednesday airing of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” former Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said President Joe Biden is visiting Saudi Arabia after vowing to make one pariah “sends a kind of message that if you have enough oil and you have enough money, you can buy your way to having a different type of reputation. And said Saudi Arabia is taking advantage of its energy leverage.

While discussing the PGA-LIV merger, Rhodes said: “Since that murder of Khashoggi, everything has been a methodical effort to methodically rebuild Saudi Arabia’s reputation by buying into sports, culture, business and elements of American and European society. And, at some point, we demonstrate that it works, even, frankly, the President of the United States said he would make Saudi Arabia a campaign pariah and then went there. It kind of sends the message that if you have enough oil and you have enough money, you can buy your way to having a different type of reputation.

He added: “I’m sure the United States is driven by some fears that you’re going to see Saudi Arabia drifting into this kind of Chinese column, especially with the war in Ukraine and with the high energy prices. and, of course, with the interest of normalization with Israel.. What I hope, however, is that we will not systematically have to check our values ​​at the door.