Trump’s state dinner for Xi Jinping will not be televised as White House continues to deny CNN full access – live

President Trump hosted Chinese leader Xi Jinping for a state dinner at the White House on Thursday, but no major network broadcast the event live, as the administration kept CNN's dinner correspondents shut out despite a judge's order restoring their access. CNN, which normally supplies rotating pool video from White House events to other broadcasters, said officials offered only a photojournalist and audio technician for the dinner, leaving out its reporter and producer entirely. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News have all declined to resume providing coverage until CNN's access is fully restored, and MS NOW, banned from the White House last week over Trump's complaints about negative coverage, said its staff were also kept from covering Xi's arrival, according to The Guardian · The New York Times.

Xi arrived with his wife, Peng Liyuan, in a scene the White House streamed live on YouTube instead, drawing just 18,000 views. Before dinner, Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, posed together with the Chinese couple; nearby hung a painting Trump had put up showing himself with a raised fist, an image from the assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024.

The standoff follows a court ruling earlier Thursday that found Trump's ban on CNN, Politico and MS NOW likely unconstitutional and temporarily restored their access; even so, reporters from those outlets were initially blocked from entering the grounds, and only regained access after a federal judge ordered the administration to respond to concerns about the barred journalists.

Summarized by PolitiKool from The Guardian · The New York Times’s reporting. Read the full story at The Guardian · The New York Times →