A handshake to Saudi King Salman and a less warm greeting - with a clenched fist - to his son, Prince Mohammed bin Salman (Mbs), de facto regent of the Kingdom who welcomed him in Jeddah and who US intelligence believes to be the principal of the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

A contrast between the two health that was not enough for Joe Biden, overwhelmed by the controversy after the trip to Saudi Arabia, a country that in the electoral campaign he had promised to turn into a pariah precisely because of that murder .

Hatice Cengiz tweeted what she thought her boyfriend Khashoggi would think: “This is the bill you promised to make my killer pay. The blood of the next MBS victims is on your hands ”.

“The fist salute was worse than a handshake, it was shameful . It projected a level of intimacy and ease that gave MBS the unwarranted redemption it desperately sought, ”commented Fred Ryan, editor and CEO of the Washington Post, the newspaper for which Khashoggi collaborated.

So Biden was almost forced to hold an unexpected press conference to ensure that he had raised the issue of human rights and crime: “ I told Mbs directly and clearly that I hold him personally responsible . I made it clear that if something like this happens again they will have an adequate response, he has rejected all guilt ”.

A version denied by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, who told Fox News that he had not heard the US president accuse the prince for Khashoggi's murder.

And all of Biden's nervousness about the controversy emerged during the press conference. When the reporters asked him if he regrets that greeting to Mbs, he replied: “ Why don't you talk about something that matters? I'd be happy to answer a question that matters ”.