Negotiating in public with all the drama of the souk. But in private they’ve been working together for over twenty years, so it doesn’t matter nearly as much as is claimed — and it lets the Biden administration feel like they’re important.

Ah. A game of telephone involving anonymous sources — what odds everyone properly heard what was being said, there were no cultural/language miscommunications, and absolutely no one in the chain (including the Saudi news site staff and especially the Biden administration functionairies) had ulterior motives coloring what was said or heard?