US-Saudi relations were strained after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA says was ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS. And he knows it was a risky move.

"I don't think that they will ever do anything like that again," says Bernard Haykel, a professor at Princeton University and MBS insider.

Still, he tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World, the regime will continue to be very repressive and authoritarian, doing things like mass executions of convicted terrorists from al-Qaeda and the Islamic State but also dissident Shiites.