"This is a bad situation. We cannot let this happen -- to reporters, to anybody, we can't let this happen. And we're going to get to the bottom of it," Trump said in the Oval Office.
He said the White House has been in touch with Khashoggi's fiancee, who wrote an open letter to Trump and the first lady appealing for their help.
"We're in contact with her now and we want to bring her to the White House," Trump said. "It's a very sad situation, it's a very bad situation, and we're going to get to the bottom of it."
But Trump stopped short of saying whether he held the Saudis responsible for the disappearance or murder, saying not enough was known to make a determination.
"I have to find out who did it. People saw him go in but they didn't see him come out," Trump said.
Khashoggi vanished on October 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. As a columnist for The Washington Post, he was a frequent critic of the regime in Riyadh.
On Saturday, Turkish officials told the Post and Reuters that Khashoggi had been killed inside the Saudi consulate. CNN has not been able to independently confirm these reports, and the Saudi government has denied them.
Trump said his government is "demanding everything" from the Saudi government to learn Khashoggi's status.
"We're demanding everything. We want to see what's going on here. It's a bad situation," Trump said in the Oval Office.
"The fact that it's a reporter -- you could say in many respects it makes it, bring it to a level, it's a very serious situation for us and for this White House. We do not like seeing what's going on," Trump said.
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