Trump Claims CNN Deliberately Ignored Xi. CNN Responds Live: You Shut Us Out

Donald Trump welcomed Xi Jinping at the White House, staged the visit with military honors and a major state program, and complained just a few hours later that CNN and MS NOW had not shown enough of the event. On Truth Social, he claimed the networks had refused to cover the Chinese president’s arrival because they did not want to give him any credit. For Trump, the matter was clear: The event had been magnificent, made for television, but the “Fake News” had deliberately boycotted it.

The problem with that version: CNN wanted to cover it. CNN just could not get in.

Earlier that same morning, a federal judge had ordered that CNN, MS NOW and Politico be given access to the White House again. The affected reporters still remained outside at first. CNN reporter Betsy Klein had tried several times after 9 a.m. to get in, her colleague Kristen Holmes later said live on television. Without a press pass, Klein stood on a street corner while Xi’s welcome began at 10 a.m. She was not allowed in until around noon. By then, the public part of Xi’s welcome was largely over.

Less than 15 minutes after Trump had posted his version on Truth Social, Holmes was live with Jake Tapper and took it apart sentence by sentence.

“I do want to be very clear to the President of the United States, that we would have covered Xi Jinping’s visit had you not banned CNN and MS NOW and Politico.”

Holmes called Trump’s claim “fundamentally not true.” Then she laid out three possibilities, and none of them made the president look good: Either Trump was being lied to by his own administration or press office, he had not understood what had actually happened that day, or he himself was not telling the truth in his post. What had started as a dispute over press access became a dispute over reality. Trump accused the networks of not wanting to show a state visit. The networks responded that his own White House had prevented their reporters from being there in time.

Later, the situation became even more absurd. CNN and MS NOW had their access back in principle, but that evening they were again excluded from individual parts of the state visit. A CNN photographer and an audio technician were allowed in, while the reporter and producer were not. At MS NOW, Laura Barrón-López was kept outside while other colleagues from the network were allowed in.

Trump was complaining about a lack of coverage of an event while his own administration was temporarily keeping the very journalists outside who were supposed to report on it. And Kristen Holmes said live what could hardly have been stated more clearly that day: If you had not shut us out, we would have covered it.