Well, that was fast. Less than a week after Donald Trump banned three news outlets from the White House, a federal judge ordered all three outlets reinstated in a ruling early this morning. Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee himself, ruled that Trump had pulled CNN, MSNOW, and Politico’s access without “constitutionally adequate due process.”

It had been obvious that this decision was coming: The ban was nakedly unconstitutional, the “national security” justification the White House tried to give the court was the meagrest imaginable fig leaf, and the president had been grousing about how he was already planning to appeal before the case had even had a hearing. And yet: Hours after the judge’s ruling, reporters from Politico and MSNOW were still being denied entry into the White House premises. Happy Thursday.

The Red Carpet Treatment

by William Kristol

Late yesterday afternoon, President Trump traveled to Joint Base Andrews just outside of Washington, D.C. to personally greet the Chinese dictator, Xi Jinping. It was the first time the president had met a foreign leader on arrival at Andrews. Indeed, it was the first time any American president had gone to Andrews to welcome a foreign leader in more than sixty years.

Trump was in no way obligated to make this special gesture. Xi had not personally greeted Trump when he landed in Beijing earlier this year. So Trump wanted to go out of his way to pay his respect to the Chinese strongman. Or was Trump paying not merely respect but homage?

That was certainly the sense conveyed by the ceremony as a whole. There was the televised spectacle of American service members on their hands and knees, smoothing wrinkles and picking specks of dirt off the 100-foot long red carpet that had been unrolled for Xi, as Chinese officials looked on approvingly from the door of their airplane before their leader descended the stairs.

The contrasting appearance of the two leaders was also striking. It was 64 degrees outside, but President Trump was wearing a heavy overcoat and gloves. President Xi was wearing a suit. It was like a mirror image of the contrast between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik.

And then Trump visibly winced and grimaced at the loud sound of the two American B-1 bombers flying overhead at the military welcome, while Xi stood beside him with no visible reaction.

The president of the United States of America looked weak and insecure. The paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China looked strong and confident. But Trump was apparently happy with how it all went. He told reporters as he returned to the White House that it was “a great greeting, and I think they appreciate it—tremendous people.”

Xi’s welcome at Andrews was unusual, but there was a relevant precedent: A little over a year ago, on August 15, 2025, Trump went out of his way to roll out the red carpet for and personally greet Russian President Vladimir Putin when he arrived at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska.

Trump’s meeting with the Russian dictator on that occasion resulted in no progress on any front. Putin has since done nothing to end or ameliorate his aggression against the people of Ukraine. He has since also provided Iran with satellite surveillance and targeting data to help strike U.S. military bases in the Middle East, most notably in the case of the March 27 attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia that injured twelve U.S. service members and destroyed an AWACS aircraft. And he has continued his campaign of sabotage against America’s allies in Europe.

Xi’s visit will presumably feature some token concessions and insincere promises by China, in order to help the fading chances of Trump’s party holding onto Congress in November. But no one expects any important changes in Chinese policy—including towards Iran, which counts China as its largest trading partner and an important source of weapons and technology for use against America and Americans.

But there will be a lavish state dinner. It won’t be as big as Trump would have liked—Trump has expressed regret that he doesn’t yet have a super-sized ballroom, which he has explicitly compared to China’s Great Hall of the People, to honor his esteemed visitor. But there will be big-time fawning aplenty. There probably won’t be much talk of Chinese bullying in East Asia or Chinese activities hostile to our interests elsewhere in the world. Nor will there likely be any mentions of democracy or human rights.

But this will be nothing new for Trump. In his 37-minute speech to the United Nations, Trump mentioned the word “democracy” or “democratic” once—in claiming credit for a peace deal between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda (a deal most of whose key provisions remain unimplemented). And Trump only used the term “human rights” twice—in the context of an attack on the U.N. Human Rights council.

And Trump’s U.N. speech clarified once again his approach to America’s dictatorial foes. He mentioned China—our greatest adversary and peer competitor—only once, and that was to claim that in AI technology, “we’re leading now over China by a lot and everyone else.” He mentioned Russia, the other great threat to world peace, six times—but three were to denounce the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax.” In his other mentions of the country, he conspicuously failed to identify Russia as the aggressor in its war against Ukraine. And most shockingly, he praised “the extraordinary work of our great first lady, who has secured the safe return of many displaced Ukrainian and Russian children back home to their families.” As if Ukraine was kidnapping any Russian children, and as if it was not Russia that was uniquely guilty of seizing and deporting Ukrainian children to Russia and Russia-controlled areas.

So Trump is consistent. He won’t offend Putin. He will suck up to Xi. Our petty presidential bully is cowed by the big-boy bullies of the real world.