A ‘Fox and Friends’ host publicly questioned President Donald Trump’s newly struck nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia on Thursday, warning that the arrangement rests too heavily on the reliability of a single leader whose successor remains unknown. ‘Fox and Friends’ co-host Brian Kilmeade raised the concerns during a live broadcast, prompting a swift online response from Trump himself.
The agreement would provide Saudi Arabia with a civilian nuclear program, an offer that Kilmeade said he struggled to see benefiting the United States. His skepticism stood out on a network broadly supportive of the president, and it centered less on the current Saudi government than on what might come after it.
A Warning About Who Comes Next
Kilmeade’s central worry was continuity. He praised Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a partner Washington could work with but cautioned that no one can guarantee future Saudi leaders will share that posture. “MBS seems to have emerged as somebody we can trust,” Kilmeade said, adding that the crown prince’s rise had been highly unlikely and had caught many observers off guard.
He described bin Salman as an open thinker who had moved the country in ways few thought possible. That characterization drew scrutiny, however, given that U.S. intelligence concluded bin Salman ordered the 2018 assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi — a killing that badly strained relations between Riyadh and Washington at the time.
Beyond the question of leadership, Kilmeade voiced discomfort with the substance of what the deal might allow. “I don’t see our benefit to letting them enrich,” he said of uranium, calling it a bad trend even as he credited the kingdom with genuine progress. The remark cut to the heart of long-standing anxieties about nuclear technology in the Middle East and whether civilian programs could open a path to something more.
Trump Responds Within Minutes
‘Fox and Friends’ co-host Kayleigh McEnany, a former White House press secretary, pressed the discussion further by asking if the kingdom might formalize ties with Israel and become part of the Abraham Accords through such an arrangement. The question appeared to hit a nerve.
Shortly after the segment aired, Trump — who is well known for watching the program — posted a message on Truth Social clarifying the terms. He wrote that the civil nuclear deal being arranged between the United States Department of Energy and Saudi Arabia would involve no enrichment of material and would pertain only to non-military use, comparable to programs that Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) already operate.
Crucially, the president tied approval of the deal to a condition: Saudi Arabia’s entry into the Abraham Accords. He said the agreement would be approved but was totally subject to the kingdom joining the accords, which he described as very respected and successful. In a follow-up line, Trump stated that Washington has no objection to peaceful atomic energy programs that do not involve uranium enrichment, closing with his familiar sign-off thanking readers for their attention to the matter.
The timing of the post — arriving so soon after the broadcast ended — reinforced the perception that the president had been watching in real time and moved quickly to address the on-air concerns and questions.
The Sticking Point Over a Palestinian State
Trump’s condition, however, runs into a well-documented diplomatic obstacle. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly said it will not normalize relations with Israel absent the creation of a Palestinian state. That position has been a consistent element of Riyadh’s public stance for some time.
Standing in direct opposition is the Netanyahu government, which has stated on numerous occasions that a Palestinian state will not happen. The gap between those two positions leaves the enrichment question tangled in a much larger and long-running regional dispute — one that no single deal announcement resolves.
That tension underscores the practical hurdle facing the president’s framework. By making the nuclear agreement contingent on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, Trump has effectively linked its fate to a normalization process that both Riyadh and the Israeli government have set incompatible terms around.
As of Thursday’s developments, Saudi Arabia had not responded to Trump’s post. The silence leaves open the question of whether the kingdom views the president’s public conditions as a workable basis for moving forward or as an obstacle given its stated demands.
For now, the episode captures a rare moment of friction between the president and a host on a network he closely follows. Kilmeade did not dispute the broader trajectory of Saudi reform, and he was careful to note the progress the country has made. But his hesitation over enrichment and his pointed uncertainty about the kingdom’s future leadership signaled that even sympathetic voices see real questions in an agreement still very much in flux.