Stealth has never been Donald Trump’s strong point. With aggressive press conferences and blustering, hateful speech, inflicting the world with his innermost inane thoughts seems to be his version of political diplomacy. The US president’s refusal to openly criticise Saudi Arabia after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is one such example. His flat-out dismissal of the heads of the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee over the same situation, provides another.

After calling on the president to launch an investigation into whether his ally and its leader, Prince Muhammad bin Salman, the man suspected by the CIA of ordering the murder, had anything to do with Khashoggi’s death, Trump’s immediate response was to double down on what we’d already heard.

Apparently unfazed by the brutal nature of the killing, as well as the mounting evidence against the Saudi state, he told reporters: “If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it would be a terrible mistake”. The mistake being that Russia and China could then become “enormous beneficiaries” of all the “newfound business” that would then be up for grabs if he so much as hinted at holding the nation accountable.

Stephen Colbert hits out at Trump over Saudi Arabia decision

No surprise really: this is the head of the fake news brigade speaking. A man who just this week was forced to reinstate CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials after removing them for daring to challenge him during a press conference. The wellbeing of journalists is as much of a priority to Trump as maintaining his integrity, as his assertion that “maybe” Bin Salman “had knowledge” of the operation to kill Khashoggi and “maybe he didn’t” goes to show.

Nevertheless, there is something intriguing about Trump’s inability to employ tact or diplomacy in exercising his office. Not because it’s refreshing, nor because it is worthy of praise. There is an argument that at least we know what Trump is thinking – more than we can say for some world leaders, perhaps – but that would grant him too much power. What’s surprising is that, rather than a clever political choice, it appears Trump can’t help but say exactly what he means at that moment to maintain his staunchly protectionist approach to politics. And that’s how he came to being so bluntly honest about the US and its relationship to the controversial Saudi regime.

Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events

Odd, then, that Trump’s tolerance for the brutal honesty of others is so low.

As you’ll recall, earlier this year after Michelle Wolf’s routine during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner – an event he has avoided for the past two years – the president lashed out, hurt that a comedian would do something so questionable as to fulfil the their role as an amusing and political headline speaker. This year, “for the first time in decades, they will have an author instead of a comedian”, he tweeted. “Maybe I will go?”

Quick as ever, Wolf responded: “I bet you’d be on my side if I had killed a journalist”.