Desert storm
Comey row overshadows Trump’s Saudi Arabia trip
PRESIDENT Donald Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia yesterday amid growing uproar back home over his sacking of FBI boss James Comey.
Mr Trump allegedly told the Russians that firing the “real nut job” relieved “great pressure” from an FBI probe.
Mr Comey will give evidence to a powerful US Senate committee next week.
And last night it was reported that the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, 36, who is with him on the foreign trip, has been identified by investigators into the alleged Russian connection as “a person of interest”.
But the president shrugged off the storm as he signed a series of multi- billion dollar deals between the two countries.
Mr Trump, the only US president to make Saudi his first stop overseas, was greeted personally by 81-year-old King Salman at the capital Riyadh’s airport.
The president’s wife Melania stepped off Air Force One with her hair uncovered, despite her husband criticising previous First Lady Michelle Obama for doing the same.
Saudi tradition is for women’s heads to be covered.
In January 2015, Mr Trump tweeted that Mrs Obama had insulted her hosts.
But King Salman ignored the contradic- tion as his nation gave the president an elaborate welcome for his two-day stay. Seven Saudi jets streaked through the sky, streaming red, white and blue smoke. “Very happy to see you,” said the king, who later placed his country’s highest civilian honour around Mr Trump’s neck. “It’s a great honour,” Mr Trump replied. Today he will call on the Muslim world to unite against extremism. The speech is designed to repair his image with Muslims after his election campaign in which he called for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration.