In a post shared by former Labor Department Secretary Robert Reich and other adversaries of the Trump administration, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) used the state dinner and warm White House welcome for Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) to emphasize what he characterizes as the President’s preferential treatment of wealthy globalists, even as middle income Americans struggle with basic costs.
Sanders struck an incredulous tone, writing “If you’re the royal family of Saudi Arabia, worth $1.4 trillion, Trump rewards your family with F-35 fighter jets after they ordered the murder of a Washington Post journalist.”
By contrast, Sanders said: “If you’re a 62-year old couple in America whose premiums will quadruple? Tough luck.”
Then Sanders inserts his political scalpel. “America First?” he asks.
If you’re the royal family of Saudi Arabia, worth $1.4 trillion, Trump rewards your family with F-35 fighter jets after they ordered the murder of a Washington Post journalist.
If you’re a 62-year old couple in America whose premiums will quadruple? Tough luck.
America first?
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 19, 2025
The Vermont Senator — whose political focus has long been on curtailing the influence of “oligarchs” — finds a perfect target in the de facto king of the oil-rich Saudi nation, whose vast spending in sports (see: “sports-washing“) and other areas has worked to counter the international condemnation MBS faced after American intelligence agencies linked him to the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
[NOTE: In the White House, as Sanders indicates, Trump defended the Crown Prince, saying that the murdered journalist was “extremely controversial” and that the Crown Prince “knew nothing about” his killing.]
Sanders also slammed Trump for his promise to sell F-35 fighter jets to the Saudis. As DVIDS writes, “The F-35, which has been operational since July of 2015, is the most lethal, survivable, and interoperable fighter aircraft ever built.” The F-35 jet price tag is around $100 million.
While Sanders hit Trump for his feting of MBS, and the ethical implications of Trump’s Saudi embrace, he also placed the foreign dealmaking with the Saudis in stark relief against Americans who, because of Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) legislation, will see their healthcare premiums rise precipitously for 2026.
Trump campaigned on an ‘America First’ platform, positioning his tariffs and other initiatives as policies that will strengthen America’s middle class. Accordingly, Trump — as he has done with countries like Japan, Qatar, the UAE and more — announced investments in America promised by MBS on this trip, which the President positioned as fulfilling the America First promise.
The impact of such investments, if they are fulfilled, are still largely in the future and today most polls show Trump’s support eroding on the issue of his priorities as he has focused much of his energy on the Middle East, Russia/Ukraine, Venezuela, an Argentinian bailout and other international issues — to the exclusion, critics say, of Kansas and Michigan, et al.
The Times writes that Trump’s focus on the international landscape is “fueling cracks in the MAGA firmament, and it’s worrying Trump backers who wanted him to avoid foreign entanglements.”
Trump asserts that an international focus is critical to American prosperity and therefore fulfills the America First mission. Sanders suggests that a domestic focus on affordability and a cessation of tax breaks that largely benefit the rich is the place to start.