Donald Trump was met with an enthusiastic audience as he jested with Saudi business and political figures regarding the absence of ‘transgender’ and ‘liberal’ individuals in their nation.

The former president chuckled heartily from the podium at the US-Saudi Investment Forum, suggesting that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s citizens would find the ‘woke’ occurrences in America unbelievable.

Trump went on to boast that the notion of being ‘woke’ has become ‘virtually illegal’ in the United States since he regained office for a second term.

This address came during an international gathering in Washington, D.C., following his warm welcome of the Saudi Crown Prince to the White House and subsequent criticism for his effusive compliments towards MBS.

At the Kennedy Center, Trump continued to laud MBS, dubbing him the ‘most respected man in the room’ and claimed to have frequently invoked the Crown Prince’s name to highlight the successes of his administration’s first year back in office.

Veering off script to discuss the contentious issue of biological men participating in women’s sports during Joe Biden’s presidency, Trump glanced at the audience and chuckled, acknowledging, “A lot of the Saudis are sitting here thinking, ‘What on earth is he referring to with transitioning?’ They don’t engage in much transitioning.”

He then told the crowd that those who support the issue in the US are ‘crazy.’

While not expressly illegal, any transgender expression, including cross-dressing, is criminalized under moral and Sharia-based laws that are uncodified but followed in Saudi Arabia. The Muslim kingdom is infamous for executing homosexuals.

Donald Trump cracked himself up at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum on Wednesday, November 19, 2025, when he joked that transgender people and the concept of ‘liberal’ doesn’t exist in Saudi Arabia

Speaking at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC Trump glorified Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the ‘most respected man in the room’ 

Along the same train of thought, the Republican president also claimed that the word ‘liberal’ doesn’t exist in the Middle Eastern nation.

‘I don’t know about in your country – I don’t know if you know that word “liberal,” the word “liberal” doesn’t exist,’ he laughed and the crowd joined in.

But he lamented that Democrats want to steal the word ‘progressive.’

‘You can’t use “liberal,” you have to use the word “progressive.” And I don’t like using it. It’s a beautiful word, “progressive.” Progressive – that’s not them. They’re regressive,’ Trump insisted.

Later in his wide-ranging speech, Trump said that he is pushing to get a single approval for Artificial Intelligence legislation because if it has to go through all 50 states it would become too ‘woke.’

He claimed that ’50 states is a disaster because you’ll have one woke state and you’ll have to do all woke.’

‘We don’t have woke anymore in this country. It’s virtually illegal,’ Trump bragged. ‘But you’ll have a couple of wokesters and we don’t want to do that. We want to get the AI done.’

Trump faced backlash for his chummy meeting with MBS on Tuesday – and specifically for defending him against a line of questioning over US intelligence findings that the Crown Prince ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The president claimed the question was embarrassing. He claimed the Saudi dissident and Washington Post journalist was an ‘extremely controversial’ person, and insisted that MBS ‘knew nothing about’ his death.

Elon Musk also attended the event with American and Saudi business and government leaders at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC on November 19, 2025

Khashoggi entered Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2, 2018 to obtain marriage documents – he never left. International investigators concluded that he was strangled and dismembered with a bone saw, and that his body was removed in pieces in suitcases.

The CIA concluded in November 2018 that bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s assassination.

Trump is now disputing those findings.

He dismissed the brutal murder of Khashoggi, who relocated to the US in June 2017, and said on Tuesday alongside MBS that ‘things happen.’

Also on Tuesday, Trump named Saudi Arabia a major non-NATO ally, which is a designation given by the government to countries that hold a strategic working relationship with the US.

The US pledged to sell state-of-the-art F-35 fighter jets to the Saudis, which would make them the first Middle Eastern country other than Israel to obtain the warplanes.