defending his decision to visit saudi arabia as he travels to the middle east next week against criticism and controversy surrounding the trip. the president set to meet with saudi crown prince mohammed bin salman. biden vowed to make saudi arabia a pariah. now as president he says his visit to the country is critical to u.s. security. that s right. washington post op-ed the president writes it s my job to keep our country strong and secure. we have to counter russia s aggression, put ourselves in the best possible position to outcompete china, and work for greater stability in a consequential region of the world. to do these things we have to engage directly with countries that can impact those outcomes. the president s trip has come under criticism because of saudi arabia s role in the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi. the saudi crown prince was said to be responsible for ordering khashoggi s murder. let s get some perspective on president biden s trip. a historia
cipollone s testimony to the january 6 committee. cipollone testified friday. a source says the committee asked cipollone about pardons including for the trump family and whether trump wanted to pardon himself. the committee also questioned cipollone about the pressure campaign on then vice president mike pence among a long list of other thing. the source tells cnn cipollone did use executive privilege. questions that would not have required him to do so a. spokesman called cipollone s interview productive, and said he provided, quote, critical testimony on nearly every major topic in the investigation. the spokesman says the testimony also corroborated key elements of cassidy hutchinson s very explosive public testimony nearly two weeks ago. the committee will hold its next hearing on tuesday so we ll see portions of the hearing. we ll carry it live for you