“The U.S. has a responsibility in those places [where it has good relations]. It has an opportunity through those relationships to try to pressure and use leverage to convince these governments to change their behavior on some of these issues.”

“[The Trump administration has] overvalued the relationship [with Saudi Arabia] and they’ve overlooked egregious violations and norms of the relationship… It’s certainly out of whack. And the return on investment doesn’t seem to match.”

“[The policy] could circumvent congressional oversight and lead to more reckless sales. On the other hand, it deprives the administration of an early opportunity to adjust sales to reflect congressional concerns, which could actually lead to delays.”

“[The Saudi government is] surveilling not only those they know are dissidents, but those they fear may deviate from the Saudi leadership. They are particularly worried about what Saudi nationals will do when they are in western countries.”

“It’s very unlikely that [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] unwittingly used [the Pegasus cyber-hacking] software for which he was responsible. It just strains credulity to suggest that he wasn’t aware.”

“MBS’s personal role in potentially compromising Jeff Bezos…was a clear attempt to blackmail Bezos into changing Washington Post coverage and relieving scrutiny on Mohammad bin Salman’s reckless actions.”

“[T]he mere fact that this debate is occurring about Saudi Arabia during the Democratic primary and that you have candidates…criticizing them so directly is a real sign of the underlying problem for the kingdom and for Mohammed bin Salman.”