White House again defends Biden's trip to Saudi Arabia — which he promised to make a pariah — saying he'd meet anyone who could help the US

• The White House is defending Biden's upcoming to Saudi Arabia.
• Biden promised to make Saudi Arabia a "pariah" in 2020, but the US now needs Saudi oil amid the Ukraine war.

The White House has again defended President Joe Biden's upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia in the face of mounting criticism.

On the 2020 campaign trail, Biden had promised to make the kingdom a "pariah" over the journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder, which the CIA said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had likely ordered.

As president, Biden went on to ostracize Crown Prince Mohammed — also known as MBS — by demoting his rank even though he is the de facto leader of the kingdom.

However, Biden and the White House have since softened on Saudi Arabia, a shift culminating with reports last week that Biden will visit Saudi Arabia in July.

The news sat poorly with several rights activists and Democratic lawmakers, with Rep. Adam Schiff saying Sunday that MBS, whom he called a "butcher," "should be shunned."

Addressing questions about Biden's decision to visit MBS despite his previous pledge to ostracize him, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that Biden "is focused on getting things done for the American people."

"If he determines that it's in the interest of the US to engage with a foreign leader and that such an engagement can deliver results, then he'll do so," she said.

"There's no question that important interests are interwoven with Saudi Arabia. And the president views the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as an important partner on a host of initiatives that we are working on, both in the region and around the world."

Jean-Pierre noted that Saudi Arabia has been a "strategic partner of the US for nearly 80 years."

An anonymous senior US official previously defended Biden's trip to The Guardian on Thursday, using identical phrasing to Jean-Pierre.

A key driver of the recent realignment is the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on rising US gas prices.

The US banned Russian oil imports in February and subsequently pleaded with Saudi Arabia to pump more as prices started to rise at home. (Gas prices hit a high of $4.87 a gallon on Monday.)

However, the kingdom denied those requests and later said it was committed to production levels agreed with the oil-producers group OPEC+, with MBS reportedly ignoring Biden's phone calls about boosting production.

Since then, a stream of senior US officials have flown to Saudi Arabia for discussions about oil, including CIA Director Bill Burns and Biden's chief Middle East advisor, Brett McGurk.

The US is fighting a headwind. Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates have recently become unhappy with the US' lack of commitment to maintaining their security, a key underpinning of the Saudi-US relationship, following a series of terror attacks on the Gulf.

Experts recently told Insider's John Haltiwanger that Biden's trip to Saudi Arabia suggests that MBS "got away with murder" over Khashoggi.

MBS has said he wishes people would stop bringing up Khashoggi, telling The Atlantic earlier this year that "it hurt me a lot" that he was accused of ordering the hit, a claim he denies.