By Adam Cancryn, Kristen Holmes, Alayna Treene, Sylvie Zhuang, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump spent months plotting ways to impress Xi Jinping.
But even after enlisting two military bands, ordering up a flyover, speeding construction of his new helipad and rolling out a literal red carpet, Trump ended up directly undercutting what the Chinese leader craved most: Network television cameras.
Trump’s abrupt ban on three news outlets — including CNN — disrupted months of careful planning for Xi’s state visit, frustrating both US and Chinese officials over the limited coverage of a summit meant to showcase the two men together in front of a global audience, according to multiple people familiar with the dynamic.
The suspension of pooled TV coverage for the entirety of Xi’s first day at the White House caused consternation among the Chinese leader’s allies, who had hoped the trip would broadcast him widely as a peer of the president of the world’s most powerful nation.
For Trump, who had waited months to show off in front of Xi, it simply marked the latest indignity amid a particularly turbulent stretch for his ailing presidency.
“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,” Trump vented Thursday on his social media platform.
The episode amounted to a self-inflicted wound during what Trump otherwise envisioned as a multiday spectacular welcoming of China’s authoritarian leader, complete with ceremonial events showing off his White House renovations and a tour of the US’ most treasured founding documents.
It also served as an example of the wider repercussions of Trump’s personal feud with the press, threatening to inject fresh tension into a diplomatic relationship with China that the administration has worked to keep stable ahead of November’s midterm elections.
After Trump barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House last week, the Chinese embassy contacted several US television networks to discuss how the move would affect coverage of Xi’s visit, two sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.
And despite China’s state media outlets dispatching more than 100 staffers to cover the summit, Chinese foreign ministry adviser Wu Xinbo told CNN Friday that it had been “regrettable” that more footage hadn’t made it to the American public.
“It could have helped improve the atmosphere in US-China relations,” Wu said.
Every aspect of Xi’s overseas trips, especially any summit with a US president, is meticulously planned and media coverage is seen as a critical component to highlight China’s stature and influence around the world.
Chinese officials, of course, can dictate their own state media coverage to the slightest detail — but they also want host countries and international media coverage to add legitimacy and reinforce their narrative, with quotes and video clips from US and international media often used in the past for that purpose.
In a statement, White House communications director Steven Cheung dismissed concerns about the lack of pooled TV coverage.
“The television pool had the opportunity and access to broadcast the state visit to the American people. They chose not to honor that vital responsibility,” he said. “Instead, many other media outlets, including new media, stepped up to fill that void, and tens of millions of views were achieved, in spite of the pool’s juvenile boycott.”
Still, Trump on Thursday had privately indicated his unhappiness with the extent of the coverage and desire to have the TV pool back, one source familiar with his comments said. That coverage was jointly suspended by the networks after the president banned CNN, which is one of five networks in that pool rotation. It meant video coverage during Thursday’s events was incredibly limited. Some print outlets also chose to delay publishing still photographs taken as part of the pool, in a gesture of solidarity.
The TV pool resumed its coverage Friday after CNN’s access to the White House was restored, allowing the broadcast networks to capture and widely distribute Trump and Xi’s tea meeting at the White House and subsequent visit to the National Archives.
The two leaders made only limited remarks on Friday, though Trump noted at one point that he appreciated the coverage: “It’s been very fair.”
Yet for a visit heavy on pageantry, much of the White House’s theatrics came earlier in the week. After a visit to Beijing in May that Trump praised as “an amazing period of time,” the president had quickly sought to return the favor, ultimately agreeing to host Xi for a formal state visit — the highest tier of diplomatic reception. It marked the first state visit for a Chinese leader in 11 years.
More unusual, according to foreign policy experts, was the limited expectation on either side that the summit would produce any major agreements or progress on a host of key economic and political issues.
Trump instead sought to use the visit largely as a showcase, granting Xi a rare tarmac greeting that included a cannon salute and an array of fighter jets, and on Thursday holding two military reviews on the White House grounds before concluding with a state dinner attended by high-profile business executives.
“The deliverable was a good time had by all, or something,” said one former Trump State Department official, summing up the overall view of the summit.
Even by those limited expectations, though, Trump’s sudden decision days earlier to ban news outlets from the White House and spark a First Amendment showdown left allies and some officials confounded. Across their time together, Trump did not publicly address the media ban and its fallout with Xi, who repeatedly lauded the visit in his own brief remarks.
While the Xi visit still received some coverage, including from the White House’s own live stream, a Trump adviser told CNN early Thursday that the timing of the ban was particularly inopportune.
“To have kicked this fight right before the Xi visit and then basically stepped on their own coverage just doesn’t suggest great planning,” said Edgard Kagan, a former senior State Department official on East Asia issues during the Biden and Trump administrations.
“You have the Chinese coming in with momentum because they’re showing their international standing — and the US looking very clearly like internationally we have growing friction, and domestically like we can’t even get media coverage.”
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