Vice President JD Vance was widely mocked after the White House shared an image to its official Flickr account showing him having dinner with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—often referred to by his initials MBS—while wearing a tuxedo shirt with a strange stain on it.
Many of the guests at the dinner, which included soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo and the chief executives of Apple, Dell, Blackstone, Nvidia, and other companies, have business ties with Saudi Arabia.
The dinner capped MBS' state visit, which served as a vehicle for a U.S.-Saudi partnership: Trump has agreed to sell F-35 fighter jets to the kingdom and MBS has already announced the kingdom will invest $1 trillion in the U.S.
But progressive journalist Aaron Rupar drew attention to one odd little detail: the shirt Vance, who attended the dinner with Second Lady Usha Vance, was suspiciously stained.
You can see the photo below.
The White House/Flickr
You can see the stain in a close-up shot below.
The White House/Flickr
The jokes pretty much wrote themselves.
MBS' trip to the United States was his first visit to the country since the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
The intelligence community has concluded that MBS ordered Khashoggi's murder. In fact, sources familiar with Khashoggi’s case told reporters that Khashoggi’s murder “was organized by a high-ranking officer with the General Intelligence Presidency, Saudi Arabia’s main intelligence service.” Khashoggi’s body was cut into pieces after he was killed, according to a Turkish official.
Trump faced criticism last week after he pushed back against concerns about hosting MBS at the Oval Office due to his involvement in Khashoggi's murder and even suggested that Khashoggi deserved it because people "didn't like" him.
Trump insisted he has divested himself from his family's business and undermined the findings of his own intelligence agencies when he said MBS "knew nothing" about Khashoggi's killing. He further berated the ABC News reporter who'd asked him the question, saying "you don't have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that."
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