Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), the normally mild-tempered chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, went to the Senate floor this week to protest the “lavish welcome” President Donald Trump planned to give China’s Xi Jinping on his state visit to Washington.
Wicker reminded Trump “that his guest is a brutal, unelected and oppressive dictator who seeks to dominate his neighbors and whose massive military arsenal is aimed directly at the United States of America.”
The senator listed just a few of China’s well-known offenses: sharing intelligence with Iran that led to the killing of American troops; imprisoning more than a million Uyghurs in concentration camps; intimidating U.S. allies in the region; jailing dissidents; and meddling in elections around the world.
But Wicker could have saved his breath. From the moment Xi landed on U.S. soil, Trump played the supplicant.
Trump personally welcomed the dictator at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday evening, the first time a president has paid a foreign leader other than a pope that honor in 64 years. The welcome included a 100-foot red carpet, an honor cordon, a military band and B-1 bomber flyovers so loud they made Trump wince.
Xi, Trump posted on Truth Social, “looks strong, vibrant, and fit – Better than ever. Madam Xi, of course, BEAUTIFUL!”
More flattery greeted Xi at the White House on Thursday. In between military drills, more B-1 flyovers and a gift exchange, Trump fell over himself describing the “great honor” and “great privilege” of the leader’s presence. “President Xi and I have forged a friendship, a truly great friendship.”
Xi was markedly less effusive. “President Trump and I have respect for each other” was as far as he would go. “We have built personal rapport and stayed in touch.”
Thursday night’s state dinner would bring wild mushroom fricassee and sesame-crusted sea bass. In florid terms, the first lady’s office described the menu (“A finishing drizzle of scallion oil adds vibrance and a subtle allium brightness”) and the décor (“an expression of warmth and celebration”).
This “warmth” extended to elaborate efforts to protect the dictator from the annoying questions of the free press.
There would be no press conference. The White House invited Chinese and American photographers — but no reporters — to capture Trump’s meeting with Xi. Photographers present reported that Trump joked about the friendliness of the state-run Chinese media.
After their brief meeting (it apparently produced no concrete achievements), Trump took Xi outside to show off his under-construction ballroom and the granite helipad he had just installed. Reporters shouted questions about fentanyl, Taiwan, AI and political prisoner Jimmy Lai.
But Trump waved them off. “We had a great meeting,” he said, then found yet another way to praise Xi: He “is an expert on stone, aside from many other things, and he loves good granite.”
The whole thing was embarrassing, on many levels.
Here was an American president pulling out all the stops (not to mention a “silky-smooth velouté”) at a state dinner attended by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and other tech billionaires and corporate titans — while ordinary Americans are struggling with rising prices and interest rates.
Here was an American president taking a break from blasting Democrats as “communists” to spend a few days flattering the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.
And here was an American president so diminished by his unsuccessful trade war with China that he is willing to negotiate away the security of American allies.
Former Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell and three other Republican senators this week protested Trump’s withholding of $1.3 billion in security assistance and $14 billion in arms sales for Taiwan because he wants to use the money as a “negotiating chip” with Beijing. They said they were left with “serious concerns about the strength of U.S. commitments to key partners and allies in Asia and across the globe.”
But Trump said not a peep in public about Taiwan, or about Beijing’s aid to Iran, or about anything else that might cause Xi discomfort. It was a remarkable admission of weakness by a man of constant bluster. Trump treated Xi as though his visitor held all the cards — and perhaps Xi does.
Trump has been seeing threats to national security everywhere these days. His arch and his ballroom must be built to protect national security. Reporters must be banned to protect national security. Wind-energy projects must be canceled for national security. The National Guard must patrol peaceful, Democrat-run cities for national security. Tariffs must be imposed for national security.
Yet there seems to be one big blind spot in Trump’s constant claims of national-security threats. If you look at America’s standing in the world over the past 20 months, you’ll see that we’ve launched a failed trade war, got ourselves into an intractable war in Iran, shattered alliances, become an apologist for Russia, alienated Europe and even Canada, lost the soft power we had built over generations and allowed China to fill the vacuum as it profits from our stumbles.
And you’ll have a hard time escaping the conclusion that the biggest threat to our national security right now is Donald J. Trump.
***
It seems that the worse things get, the more erratic Trump becomes. And right now, things are crashing down all around him.
Diesel prices continue to set records. Mortgage rates have hit 7%. ICE keeps shooting people. Trump’s attempt to ban three news organizations went down in court. He abandoned his threats to annex Greenland (and declared victory), while threatening at the U.N. to “annihilate” Iran and admitting to plundering Venezuelan oil: “To the victor belong the spoils.”
Polls show that he has reached new depths of unpopularity. Republicans are fleeing from him in droves as they face what looks more and more like an electoral wipeout in November. JD Vance pleads for voters to “give us another chance.”
And what does Trump plan to do to clean up the mess?
On Sunday morning, he announced that, “for National Security purposes,” he would turn his proposed Arc de Trump outside Arlington National Cemetery “into a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch, to house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.”
Drones and snipers perched between Arlington National Cemetery and Memorial Bridge? Perhaps Trump is expecting “Fighting Joe” Wheeler, “Little Phil” Sheridan and “Black Jack” Pershing to rise from the Arlington dead, shuffle over the bridge and launch a zombie attack on the White House.
Trump also announced this week that construction is ahead of schedule at his “Great National Security Facility and Ballroom” where the East Wing of the White House once stood. When his ballroom project was facing trouble in the court of public opinion and in the actual courts, Trump likewise reimagined that project as a “great and very important military asset” with a drone port on the roof that “will protect future Presidents!!!”
But apparently not their guests. The ballroom architect resigned last year after warning Trump that his design didn’t provide sufficient emergency exits and fire safety, The Washington Post reported this week — a relevant consideration when one is piling drone-mounted explosives on the roof.
Trump’s answer to the building code violations: “I am the code.”
L’État, c’est moi.
Trump’s deep concern for our national security is also what led him to ban CNN, Politico and MS NOW from the White House — or at least that was his after-the-fact justification.
“I’m talking about national security, and I think we have a right to clean out fake news,” Trump said on Tuesday. “It’s very dangerous for our country and I won’t stand for it.”
To back this up, the White House pointed to a Politico report citing a “senior administration official … granted anonymity” who divulged sensitive information about the Iran war. But it turned out the source of the secret information was … an official White House press call. White House press aides decreed that the briefer — Vice President JD Vance — was not to be identified.
The three news outlets sued, and even Trump didn’t expect his ban to survive in court, for he said the judge — Trump appointee Timothy Kelly — “is not a particularly fair judge.” To argue the case, the administration assigned Michael Velchik, a man who, it was reported last year, wrote a 2013 email noting that “my favorite book I’ve read this year is ‘Mein Kampf.’”
Velchik warned the judge that “there would be clear separation of powers concerns as well as national security concerns” if he forced Trump “to grant reporters access to the White House complex” during this week’s visit by China’s Xi.
The reason for all these invocations of “national security” is clear enough: The administration believes that the mere mention of the magic phrase will exempt it from court interference. “The powers of the president to protect our country,” Stephen Miller said long ago, “will not be questioned.”
Kelly didn’t think much of that. He reinstated the outlets’ White House access early Thursday morning. He saw no evidence that “the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes will in fact protect national security.”
The judge ordered that the White House “immediately return, reinstate and restore” the press credentials. But the administration instead did its usual slow-walking, waiting until noon — 11 hours after the order — to comply.
The judge was actually doing Trump a favor. The president’s ban on CNN set off a boycott by other TV outlets, including Fox News, thereby depriving him of the airtime that is his oxygen. On Monday, he was completely inaudible as he tried to show off his new White House helipad to what was left of the press pool. On Wednesday, his appearance before the defanged pool devolved into this exchange with the Trump-friendly Real America’s Voice:
Reporter: “You gave a very powerful speech at the U.N.”
Trump: “Thank you.”
In an attempt to replace the pool, the White House on Monday launched a YouTube channel called “Trump TV,” which mostly has reruns of past Trump appearances. I tuned in Thursday morning and, in this nation of 343 million souls, 557 of them were watching a replay of Trump’s 2025 speech at West Point.
The White House pronounced Trump TV “a major success.”
Of course, it’s just like Trump to declare a major success no matter what happens. At the U.N. this week, he proclaimed that “our country is doing better than ever before” and that “we have the hottest country anywhere in the world.”
That’s what made Xi’s state visit all the more noteworthy. Gone were Trump’s boasts and self-love, replaced by effusive, almost obsequious, praise for his visitor.
At the state dinner Thursday night, Trump had assembled all his favorite people for Xi: Fox News hosts, Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices, Cabinet officers and the likes of Sam Altman, Stephen Schwarzman and Sundar Pichai, along with the CEOs of Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, JPMorgan, ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs and others.
“You are truly outstanding, amazing people,” Trump said to Xi and his wife. Trump used the word “honor” nine times in his toast: “It is a great honor. … We’re all here today and tonight to honor you.”
“We’ve never gotten along better,” Trump said of the U.S.-China relationship.
He presented Xi with a sculpture of a bald eagle and invited the guests to tour the ballroom construction site — “in honor of President Xi.”
The billionaires and CEOs applauded.
All those previous administration complaints about a “very hostile” China that “ripped off” the United States, held the world “captive,” killed Americans through “war by other means” with fentanyl and carried out “the largest compromise of election data in history”?
Never mind. Trump is too desperate a man to worry about such trifles.
Dana Milbank is a Washington Sun Perspectives columnist.
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