Newt Gingrich, who is being vetted to be Donald Trump’s running mate and appeared with the candidate in Cincinnati on Wednesday, left the campaign trail this weekend for an unusual reason. The former speaker of the House had to fly to Paris to appear at a gala celebration for the Mojahedin-e Khalq, or People’s Mujahedin, an Iranian exile group that wants Washington’s backing for regime change in Iran. In his remarks, Gingrich heaped praise on the MEK’s efforts and congratulated the group on the presence of another dignitary, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a senior member of the Saudi royal family and former head of that nation’s intelligence service.

What Gingrich failed to mention in his enthusiastic endorsement of the MEK, however, is that the Iranian dissidents previously spent three decades trying to achieve their aim through terrorist attacks, and some of their first victims were Americans. He also avoided talking about the fact that the group’s terrorist cell was once based in Iraq, where it was armed and protected by Saddam Hussein. The timing of Gingrich’s appearance at the MEK gala was awkward for Trump, since the candidate had spent part of the previous week arguing that the late Iraqi dictator, while being “a really bad guy,” deserved some credit because “he killed terrorists.”

Here's Donald Trump praising Saddam Hussein pic.twitter.com/ybmqoEc59c — Mashable News (@MashableNews) July 6, 2016

John Bolton: "#Iran has changed neither its policies nor its behavior. Repression inside Iran continues." More: https://t.co/YTxldwoIxh — NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) July 9, 2016

Joining the #FreeIran rally with the Iranian opposition in #Paris, Prince Turki bin Faisal Al-Saud of the #Saudi Royal Family. A big deal. — Philip J. Crowley (@PJCrowley) July 9, 2016

As Gingrich noted, however, perhaps the most important speaker at the MEK gathering this year was the Saudi royal, Prince Turki al-Faisal. Although the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran is not new, Prince Turki’s speech to the dissident group seemed like a departure to many Iranians, not least because it was marked by the bizarre spectacle of the Iranian exiles interrupting his address to chant, in Arabic: “Al Shaab Yureed Isqat al-Nitham!” — “The People Demand the Fall of the Regime!”

Video of this moment, broadcast on Al-Arabiya, the Saudi-owned satellite news channel, showed Prince Turki respond: “I, too, want the fall of the regime.” The comment, an open call for regime change in Tehran from a Saudi royal, struck Iranian journalists and activists as a turning point. It was also deeply ironic, given that the chant was used in the pro-democracy protests across the Middle East in 2011 that Saudi Arabia fought so hard to repress.

Iranian group chanting in Arabic against Iran gov before a former Saudi intelligence official sums it all up. pic.twitter.com/SvPp5o0l66 — Arash Karami (@thekarami) July 9, 2016

#Saudi officials attending MEK rally further sends signal to #Iran that they're not interested in dialogue. Saudi seriously miscalculating — Ariane M. Tabatabai (@ArianeTabatabai) July 9, 2016

After Iraq, do these people have no shame? Infuriating. Iranians agree only on their hatred for this bananas cult. https://t.co/OFDSb7cCYo — Azadeh Moaveni (@AzadehMoaveni) July 9, 2016

They are willfully blind to the fact that majority of #Iranians view MKO/MEK as a religious terrorist cult.Shameful. https://t.co/OMxQ6RGaES — Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) July 9, 2016