President Biden on Sunday lashed out at reporters who asked if he regretted his fist bump with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, who approved the 2018 operation that killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to U.S. intelligence assessments.

“Why don’t you guys talk about something that matters?” Biden told the reporters at the White House after returning from Saudi Arabia. “I’m happy to answer a question that matters.”

The fist bump received widespread criticism as a sign that Biden was cozying up to Saudi leaders. Biden previously vowed to make Saudi Arabia “the pariah that they are” after U.S. intelligence assessed the crown prince had ordered the journalist’s killing. Khashoggi, who was a Washington Post columnist, was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to collect documents for his wedding.

The publisher and CEO of the Washington Post, Fred Ryan, called the greeting “shameful.”

“The first bump between President Biden and Mohammed bin Salman was worse than a handshake — it was shameful. It projected a level of intimacy and comfort that delivers to MBS the unwarranted redemption he was been desperately seeking,” Ryan said in a statement.

After the meeting, Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz posted a mock tweet that her late partner would have written in response to the fist bump: “Hey @POTUS, Is this the accountability you promised for my murder? The blood of MBS’s next victim is on your hands.”

Meanwhile, Biden ignored a question on Friday about whether Saudi Arabia is still a pariah state.

Biden on Sunday also disputed claims by Saudi Arabia’s state minister for foreign affairs that he did not confront the crown prince about Khashoggi’s murder.

The president said, “No,” when asked if the foreign minister, who was present during the meeting, was telling the truth. Days earlier, Biden said that he told the crown prince he thought he was responsible for the murder.

“I indicated I thought he was,” Biden said on Friday. “He said he was not personally responsible for it, and he took action against those who were responsible.”

While campaigning in 2019, Biden called Khashoggi’s death “flat-out murder” and called for consequences.

“There’s very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia,” Biden said in 2019 at a Democratic debate. “They have to be held accountable.”

In 2020, two years after the journalist was murdered, Biden released a statement calling for “accountability” and saying as president he would “reassess our relationship with the Kingdom.”

However, sources told the Washington Post that Biden and his senior aides later decided that the United States’ security and energy relationship with Saudi Arabia was too important to isolate the country.