Trump Says Looks Like Khashoggi Dead, Threatens Consequences

U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday it "certainly looks" as though Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is dead, threatening "very severe" consequences if the Saudis are found to have murdered him.

Trump, who has insisted that more facts must be known before making assumptions about Khashoggi, did not say on what he based his statement on the writer's demise two weeks ago. He commented as he left Joint Base Andrews for a political trip to Montana.

Asked if Khashoggi was dead, he said, "It certainly looks that way. ... Very sad."

As for the potential U.S. response to Saudi Arabia, which is accused of murdering the Washington Post columnist and critic of the Saudi regime, Trump said: "It will have to be very severe. It's bad, bad stuff."

This marked a hardening of tone from the Trump administration, which has been reluctant to blame ally Saudi Arabia, despite mounting evidence that Saudi agents killed and dismembered Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul more than two weeks ago.

A former regime insider, Khashoggi had become a critic of powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the point man in ever-tightening military and commercial relations between the Muslim petro-state and the Trump administration.

Just hours earlier Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he had told Trump the Saudis should be given "a few more days to complete" an investigation.

Only then, Pompeo said, "we can make decisions how or if the United States should respond."