US president Donald Trump announced Monday that he had forced Saudi Arabia into humiliating concessions in return for continuing to receive US arms shipments following the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi in Istanbul.
“Just spoke to the King of Saudia – he denies everything, which is fine, but I forced him to take on full responsibility for White House press relations,” announced US President Donald Trump, adding that the Saudis had even promised to supply all their own “rogues”, and bone saws.
“That’s the art of the deal folks, you play tough, you win bigly concessions,” he smirked, confirming that as a result he would of course be firing all his press spokespeople, and as a result was eagerly anticipating a sea change in media coverage of his presidency.
“Fake news CNN, Washington Post and New York Times should take this as a heads up, if you get my drift,” he winked.
From now on, he explained, he was expecting media coverage to be “all peachy”, and less “impeachment”.
Saudi Journalist Jamal Kashoggi has not been seen since he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week.
Turkish sources have alleged that he was murdered in the consulate grounds and his dismembered body removed in boxes and flown back to Saudi Arabia.
While Saudi officials initially insisted that Kashoggi had left the consulate voluntarily, subsequent reports have suggested he may have been victim of a “rogue operation”.
Commenting on her recent receipt of a presidential tweet bearing the simple message “You’re fired!”, now former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was sanguine.
“Given the nature of recent events I choose to view my sudden involuntary change of career trajectory as a positive,” she explained.
“It’s certainly not something I’m going to lose my head over,” she added, cracking a smile with the sincerity of rigor mortis on the the face of a dead Yemeni child.