To saudi arabia where it is 1 00 a. M. Wednesday morning. Im bret baier. Weaver coming to you live from temperature ray a, the historic birthplace of the royal family the beginning of the saudi kingdom about. 12 miles north west the capital city of riyadh we will have much more on minutes. Stories making headlines lack home. House republicans plan to hold their next hearing next week in their Impeachment Inquiry into President Biden over his familys business dealings. The September 28th Session is expected to focus on constitutional and legal questions that surround allegations of the president s involvement in his son hunters overseas finances. The white house is calling the effort by the House Republicans extreme politics at its worst. President biden says the world must unite around ukraine and its fight against russian invaders. The president making that comment during a speech to the United NationsGeneral Assembly today. He is, however, being criticized for failing to pay enough attention to the southern Border Crisis at home. The Biden Administration is changing its mind about trying to mediate the United Auto Workers strike against the big three detroit automakers. The white house has canceled plans to send two representatives. Also, tonight, the head of the union says the walkout may be expanding. Serious progress toward Contract Negotiation a new agreement is not made by friday at noon. Stocks were down, ahead of a possible Interest Rate hike by the federal reserve. The dow lost 107 today. The s p 500 finished off 10. The nasdaq fell 32. Now, here to saudi arabia. This country is one of the Worlds Largest oil producers. The origin of islam, the Worlds Largest sand desert. The Worlds Largest oasis, the Worlds Largest airport. Politically, it is one of the most important places on the planet as a Cultural Center for both arabs and muslims and pivotal strategic location. Since the u. S. Established diplomatic ties with this Desert Kingdom nearly a century ago, the relationship between the two countries has been complicated. The two countries have partnered on Energy Security and stability in the middle east. They share strong economic ties. The saudis are big investors in the u. S. Economy. Big customers for Military Equipment and technology. But, over the years, it certainly has been friction over human rights, radical islam, and other issues. Over the next two nights, we bring you an exclusive Behind The Scenes look at the kingdom. Well show you what its about, its beauty and uniqueness and its increasingly Important Role in world affairs. That friction i mentioned is a big part of the story as well. We have been given unprecedented access to top saudi officials and, tomorrow, i will speak exclusively to crowned Prince Mohammed bin salman. This evening, though, we begin with a fair and balanced look at the kingdom of saudi arabia. One of the first things you notice when you enter the kingdom, its busy. Bustling, and on the move. Cranes dot the saudi skyline. A lot of them. Building activity in the kingdom is the highest in the world. Part of more than 1 trillion of construction and real estate projects tied to whats called vision 2030. The brainchild of the countrys de facto leader, 38yearold crowned Prince Mohammed bin salman. I think he is and will be a transformational leader. Major influence on the course of the world economically and politically over the next half century. Bret Managing Editor And Publisher of the Wall Street JournalCarrie Elliott house has covered the middle east for 45 years. He is the seventh son of king salmon. So, you know, technically, he shouldnt amount to anything, you know, in a hierarchal society, and, yet, he proved kind of shear determination, Preparation Intelligence has made himself what he is to his father and now to his country his father king salmon is 88 and is ailing. Some day he will pass on the throne to his 38yearold son now known Around The World by his initials mbs. He clearly intends to be a figure on the world stage. I dont think he is inclined to slow down. Bret so you tell your team to be ready. We have to be sharp and ready. I tell my team we have to do the impossible. Brahim is the Ministry Of Economy and planning and he can attest to the crowned prince setting the bar high and expecting results. Vision 2030 is about unlocking potential, bret. Thats the Main Objective of vision 2030. Its a blueprint of where we want to be and how we will get there its designed to address our long Term Economic challenges and risks through three things, diversifying the economy empowering the youth of the kingdom and building institutions that can help carry this beyond 2030 and beyond. Bret listening to the crown prince, his Royal Highness. Is he clearly positioning himself as major world leader when it comes to economic issues. And just at the g20 in india, being a part of this rail and port deal, this infrastructure deal, seems like it will be a big deal for your country. Absolutely. It helps saudi arabia play a bigger role, connecting the world, positioned where we are today. This is only an asset that we need to leverage. And its about connecting energy, connecting data, connecting goods and services. Connecting people. All for the betterment of the world at large. Thank you, again. Bret the Multi National rail and ports deal signed at the g20 will link europe to the t and south asia. This is a big deal. This is a real big deal. Bret the Northern Corridor connects germany, france and italy to israel, jordan, saudi arabia, and the uae. The Eastern Corridor creates a direct path from the Raushian Gulf Countries to india. At the meeting, the israelis raised a glass to toast the deal. [cheers] norm rule is a former senior u. S. Intelligence official. Bret the saudis dont formally have relations with israel, however, that normization seems to be getting closer. Absolutely. In that agreement, for the first time in any arab agreement, israel is mentioned as a key element of that infrastructure change. I think youre going to see saudi arabia speak more and more about integration of the region, economic infrastructure and thats how its going to approach relations with israel. Bret there are a number of Puzzle Pieces that have to come together for normization between the two countries but only two people truly know whats happening and whats possible. Could it be the 73yearold ben gentleman minute netanyahu and 38yearold mbs who possibly strike this deal . Yeah. I believe it is as good a chance as certainly as these two countries have ever had. Bret one major change that has happened in the kingdom, women can drive. Like a dream that came true. A ban was lifted in 2018 and big changes from women have continued since then from full participation in sports and events, eliminating requirements for Head Coverings or the traditional aby a to enabling women to launch their own businesses. More than 40 of the Small Business owners in the kingdom are now women. Women have top roles within saudi arabias cabinet, stock exchange, and other government positions. Lena al my inna is a Business Owner who lives in jetta. It was shock chemotherapy. Thats really what it was. If we had waited for slow changes, it would have probably taken us decades to reach where we are today. We have actually surpassed so many of our targets that we put new targets. Making improvements for years. The change is so fast and unbelievable. Even for you, who is fighting for this for a long time. Even for you . Definitely. For example, my daughter now sits on four board of directors. This wouldnt have happened a couple of years back. The ceiling, the beauty about it. They no longer see the Glass Ceiling but we have a responsibility to tell them that with freedom comes responsibility and this is why what we do right now is a lot of Culture Assessments within organizations to make sure their policies are in place behavior behind sets have switched. A few years ago women in saudi arabia could not drive. The saudis had a female astronaut a few months ago launched from the United States by the way. Half of Astronaut Program is composed of women. Their ambassador to the United States is a formidable diplomat royal heinous the daughter of a famous saudi diplomat. I see a country that has underwent Titanic Changes At Scale and pace and degree no country in modern times has seen. These changes have been positive. Bret not all the news out of the kingdom has been positive. 15 of the 19 9 11 hijackers were saudis and many 9 11 victims families make their feelings clear especially around the anniversary of the attacks that they believe the saudi government facilitated or supported the hijackers. Something saudi officials deny. This is a fox news alert. Breaking right now, reports that saudi arabias government is admitting that journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside their consulate. Bret October 2018 Saudi Born Journalist and columnist Jamal Khashoggi was kidnapped, murdered, and dismembered by a group of saudi agents at their consulate in istanbul. U. S. Intelligence accused the new crown prince of approving the operation, something he denied on 60 minutes. Did you order the murder of Jamal Khashoggi . Absolutely not. This was a heinous crime. But i take full responsibility as a leader in saudi arabia. Especially since it was committed by individuals working for the saudi government. This was a mistake and i must take all actions to avoid such a thing in the future. Bret almost five years later, icy relations with the u. S. Have th thawed and evolved from a closed fist to an open hand. People who know him say the crown prince never slowed down. Since that time, i think he is just, as my mother would say, kept his nose to the grind stone, and moved on. He has just kept doing what he thinks the country needs to succeed and people have come to accept that the man or the country. Look at biden, he called them a pariah and now he seems to believe that pariah for u. S. Strategy. Is he involved in trying to bring israel and saudi together. Bret Kings Of Saudi Arabia also holds the title custodian of the two holy mosques, islams two holiest sites. Meccas grand modification and the prophets mosque in me deanna. For religious conservatives here the crown princes changes may be coming too fast. But, with roughly 70 of the country under the age of 35, younger saudis are fully embracing the vision. Every day is a blank canvas with the saudi youth. They are painting pictures that we never managed could be possible more than seven years ago. We are more make this transformation count. Bret there is buy in especially from the younger people. Yes. Everyone is familiar with vision 2030. Look here. Shot taken, goal bret football, soccer in the u. S. , is an obsession here providing a new sense of National Identity and nothing super charged that more than saudi arabias surprise world cup win over argentina. A stunner. One of the biggest upsets in world cup History Minister of sports was in qatar for the game. We were just afraid not to go out from argentina but when we saw the performance and we its a dream. That will whole day tried to pinch myself to see if it happened or not. Bret did it change how the people looked at the program. For us, that put everything made sense then. That all the investment that were putting in reflected in our performance of our National Team throughout the two years or three years prior to that. And thats what we want. Bret you cant get reynaldo to play on the National Team. I wish we could but we cant unfortunately. Hopefully have a new renal dough from the future from saudi. The saudi football khloe club signed World Famous Christian are added in a dough to two and a half Year Contract reportedly worth 220 million. Add that to f1 grand prix race and formulae championship. And now a growing stable of liv golfers playing their own tournaments but also merging with the pga tour. Bret it is a lot of money. People look at it from afar and say saudi is buying sports and the critics say this is sports washing. Trying to enhance your reputation. How do you respond to that. I respond with the facts. The facts showcase that we have numbers of participation has gone up. Thats what we want as a country. When we invest into something, we want return in our kids to grow loving these sports. Even our National Teams. In 2017, we had 32 federations. Today we have 97 Fed Derisions in different sports and activities. Bret operating with the field of dreams premise, if you build it, they will come. Saudi arabia is creating massive new resorts, Tourist Destinations along the red sea and an area called knee only. His excellency is the Minister Of Tourism who joined us from the u. N. General assembly from new york. Tourism is the forefront of vision 2030. We have doubled in the last two years. We will double in the next two years. Doubled in the last two years . We have advised our targets, we revised it up to 150 million visits domestic and international. 70 million visits international by 2030. We will achieve 30 million this year out of the 7 be 0 Million International visitors and, bret, this is before neom. Bret saudi is also building new State Of The Art cities the most ambitious and futuristic of them, the line. Imagine a traditional city and consolidating its footprint, designing to protect and enhance nature. The line will be home to 9 million residents and will be built with a footprint of just 34 square column tefers and the lines infrastructure makes it possible to travel end to end in 20 minutes with no need for cars. Resulting in zero carbon emissions. Bret the line in neom, is that really going to happen . 1,000 . Actually, the construction started. Bret when you look at these images of these futuristic places that are being built and envisioned, Everything Everything from the red sea to neom. The line, you tell people that is real, its tangible . Its going to happen . We have advantage. We are building the new city, and it is easier to building is from scratch, rather than to transform something. If you want today to transform a big city like london or paris or new york, its very difficult, you know, because this city was built over many, many decades. It will be the example of the future city where anyone would love to live there and experience how the future living will look like. Bret while all the new projects are designed to diversify the saudi economy away from oil, they have to be paid for. And while the kings dom is making significant investments in green energy, oil is its lifeblood. Bret im sorry to miss you in saudi arabia, but thank you for joining us from calgary. Bret Energy Ministry zoomed in from the World PetroleumCongress Just after addressing the saudis recent Oil Production cuts with opec plus countries including russia. We are not price driven. We are more or less stability driven. We are not siding with anybody. We are siding with our own national interest. We are trying to protect our economy. There is huge ambition. We need to secure that ambition. We achieve 70 or 08 what is the ambition . It would be like less than 10 years the amount of transformation that we would be going through is way beyond what we have done in the last 80 years. Bret which brings us back to where we started. Saudi arabia is on the move behind a large charging young leader who is constantly buzzing. It is a bee hive. Everybody is working 24 7. We are continuously being challenged. We are running very, very fast. Catch up with him, honestly, and to deliver what deliver his vision. 24 hours. 24 hours on demand, on call. We are working every day. No weekends. And but, you know, the beauty about it is that we feel and we see the change that is happening. Bret as i sit down with his Royal Highness the crown prince, what do you think i should ask him . Ask him ho