As gas prices soar, President Biden is reportedly planning a trip to Saudi Arabia this month, the AP reports, but also notes that it's "a trip that would likely bring him face-to-face with the Saudi crown prince he once shunned as a killer."

Indeed Biden is also on record as calling Mohammed Bin Salman a "pariah" - but more recently this rhetoric has been missing as the Ukraine crisis has left Washington quietly begging the world's top oil exporter to urgently loosen up supply, giving MbS leverage, witnessed for example in the White House dispatching CIA director William Burns to meet with the crown prince in an attempt to smooth over relations in April.

And more recently National Security Council Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk alongside Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser for energy security at the State Department, traveled to hold preparatory talks with the Saudis.