Donald Trump lashed out at CNN for not covering Xi Jinping’s visit to the White House, then prevented them from attending his lavish state dinner for the Chinese president.
In the tumultuous battle between the president and the press, CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO were allowed back on White House grounds on Thursday, five days after their credentials were confiscated.
Their return came after a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s ban, finding that the journalists were likely to succeed in arguing that the White House had violated their constitutional right to due process.
But in a head-scratching move on Thursday afternoon, Trump then took to Truth Social to accuse CNN of not covering the event—even though he had locked them out in the first place.
“The event was magnificent—Actually made for Television but, because they’re Fake News, and because they knew how good it would be, they didn’t want credit to be given to “TRUMP,” they refused to be there,” he falsely claimed.
In another bizarre twist, CNN revealed a few hours later that, despite being allowed back onto the White House grounds, they weren’t allowed to cover the state dinner because the White House wanted only a TV camera and audio—not a reporter or producer.
CNN reporter Kristen Holmes explained the bizarre turn of events during a live cross as the president and First Lady Melania Trump were greeting Xi and his wife Peng Liyaun on the north portico ahead of Thursday night’s dinner.
“We received an email from the White House asking who would be attending. We responded that… we would only be sending editorial. That is what the agreement has been,” she said, referencing the TV networks not sending a pool until the ban was listed.
But after requesting a credential for the dinner, Holmes said, “We were told that we did not have access. We asked specifically: ‘Why not?’ They said, ‘Your invitation was only for a television camera and audio.”
The episode was the latest example of Trump’s increasingly transactional approach to the White House press corps, treating access as a privilege that can be selectively granted or withdrawn.
But it also exposed the farcical nature of the ban, which limited what Trump craves most: made-for-TV moments.
Thursday’s visit provided plenty of spectacle. After years of insisting China was a threat to the U.S., Trump rolled out the red carpet for Xi, beginning with a formal state arrival ceremony on the South Lawn featuring military pageantry, the Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, and a military flyover.
He then hosted Xi for talks before the pair appeared together for a military review and later returned to the White House for the state dinner, where Trump and Melania greeted Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, on the North Portico.
The dinner itself is being held in the East Room rather than Trump’s unfinished ballroom, with guests including tech titans NVIDA’s Jensen Huang, Apple CEO Tim Cook, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Amazon’s Jeff and wife Lauren and Fox hosts Brett Baier and Jesse Watters.
Melania oversaw a red-themed setting designed to evoke Chinese cultural traditions, and curated a menu featuring American ingredients with “subtle Chinese influence”.
The dinner began with a toast of Schramsberg Blanc de Noir, a deliberate nod to the “Toast to Peace” shared by President Richard Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in Beijing in 1972.
Trump declared that the two nations were celebrating their “long history” tonight.
He then went off script and invited guests to tour the ballroom construction site.
