On Tuesday afternoon, Donald Trump touched on the most critical issue in the Saudi government’s arranged murder and dismemberment of a journalist who had dared to speak up against both the royal family and Donald Trump.

Trump: They had a very bad original concept. It was carried out poorly and the cover-up was one of the worst cover-ups in the history of cover-ups.

Some of this appears to be complaints about the skill with which the Saudi crown prince carried out the assassination of a journalist—not that he was killed. Just that it was “carried it out poorly.” But most of Trump’s ire is reserved for the Saudi’s poor cover-up skills.

As ABC reports, the Saudi story has shifted constantly since Jamal Khashoggi first disappeared inside their Istanbul consulate. With momentary pauses on everything from “we know nothing” to “rogue killers” to the current champion of “he got in a fist fight.”

For Trump, all of this is just embarrassing. The Saudis’ sloppy body-double work. The poor editing. The complete lack of either nuclear threats or overt racism to distract the public from the current story. It just all speaks to a nation that’s not in Donald Trump’s cover-up league. Donald Trump could have put them in touch with … well, maybe not Michael Cohen. Someone. Maybe Mark Burnett. He knows how to carve out a concept . And how to edit the tapes so that even that a idiotic racist with a violent temper comes out looking like a sage leader.

Really. This whole thing could have been handled without a problem. If they’d just come to Trump first.