State dinner for Xi not televised as White House bars CNN journalists
President Donald Trump is scheduled to take Chinese President Xi Jinping to the National Archives on Friday for a tour that coincides with the United States’ 250th anniversary, capping a three-day state visit, according to the Guardian’s live blog. The Archives — home to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights — is hosting a special sesquicentennial exhibit titled “The American Story” that highlights the country’s accomplishments alongside its darker chapters. The Guardian cited AP reporting that Xi is expected to depart Washington after the tour.
Speaking on Thursday, Trump said he wanted to show Xi “some of the greatest treasures of that proud history.” He had already shown the Chinese leader one copy of the Declaration of Independence on Thursday — a wall-mounted version Trump keeps in the Oval Office — and said he also planned to display artefacts documenting the relationship between the two countries.
“Just as our ancestors reached across the ocean centuries ago to trade, to learn, and to build a better world, our two countries do really the same thing, and we’re very proud of it,” Trump said.
Friday’s schedule is set to begin at the White House, where Trump and first lady Melania Trump will host Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, for tea before the leaders travel to the Archives.
A state dinner for Xi on Thursday was not televised because the White House continued to deny full access to CNN journalists covering the event despite a court order, the Guardian reported.
On his social media platform, Trump wrote that two of the three outlets he has banned from the White House — CNN and MS Now — “refused to cover” his elaborate welcome of Xi. The Guardian noted that Trump did not acknowledge that the two broadcasters were not in position to cover the event live because his own administration and aides had continued to block their reporters.
In other developments from the same live blog, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani publicly released video of himself hosting Palestinian families from Gaza on the same day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked him at the United Nations. Darializa Avila Chevalier, a Democratic socialist congressional candidate from New York, was among dozens of activists arrested near the United Nations on Thursday at a protest organized by Jewish Voice for Peace against Netanyahu’s appearance. Separately, the Guardian reported that the Trump administration used taxpayer funds this week to air a White House-produced, pro-Trump advertisement on Fox News.