En route to a campaign rally in Montana, Trump spoke about the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, saying he believes the Washington Post reporter is dead.
"Do you believe Jamal Khashoggi is dead?" a reporter asked.
"It certainly looks that way to me. It's very sad," Trump said.
"What are you considering for possible consequences for Saudi Arabia?" a reporter asked off-screen.
"Well, it will have to be very severe. I mean, it's bad, bad stuff, but we'll see what happens," Trump responded.
Jamal Khashoggi, a permanent United States resident and critic of the Saudi regime, disappeared on Oct. 2 after entering the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Turkey. He has not been seen or heard from since.
Turkish officials accuse the Saudis of murdering Khashoggi and say they have audio evidence of the murder. The Free Beacon previously reported:
Earlier this month, Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident, disappeared after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week. Turkish officials accuse the Saudis of murdering Khashoggi. They also claim an audio recording captured moments of his "interrogation, torture, and killing," a Turkish newspaper reported. Saudi Arabia has denied the allegations.
Trump has threatened "severe punishment" if the Saudi government is responsible for Khashoggi's death.
"There's a lot at stake. And, maybe especially so because this man was a reporter. There's something — you'll be surprised to hear me say that, there's something really terrible and disgusting about that if that was the case so we're going to have to see. We're going to get to the bottom of it and there will be severe punishment," Trump said.
Turkey has not released the audio recording to the U.S. government or key European allies, according to Reuters.
Though reports have tied Saudi Arabia to Khashoggi's disappearance from the beginning, its leaders have denied all involvement. The kingdom's ambassador to Washington, Prince Khalid Bin Salman, said last week, "I assure you that the reports that suggest that Jamal Khashoggi went missing in the consulate in Istanbul or that the kingdom’s authorities have detained him or killed him are absolutely false, and baseless." Saudi Arabia's top leaders continued to deny knowledge of what happened to the journalist on Tuesday during a visit with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
On Wednesday, Sen. John Kennedy (R., La.) said that he believes Saudi Arabia is behind Khashoggi's likely death.
"I think he was murdered," Kennedy told CNN. "I think the Saudis are certainly acting like they did it. I don't know whether King Salman or Prince Mohammed knew about it. Not sure it matters."
When asked on Thursday about the next steps concerning Khashoggi's disappearance, Trump told reporters the administration was waiting on information that he expected to have "very soon."
"We're waiting for some investigations and waiting for the results, and we'll have them very soon, and I think we'll be making a very strong statement," Trump said. "We're waiting for the results of about three different investigations, and we should be able to get to the bottom [of this] fairly soon."