White House report card: Panda diplomacy can’t hide AI differences

WASHINGTON SECRETS

BY ROB CRILLY

Welcome to Friday’s edition of Washington Secrets, with your guide to who is up and who is down this week. If a friend sent you this and you’d like to sign up, CLICK HERE. We run the rule over the president’s week and check in with one of Biden’s top officials.

Donald Trump’s week was dominated by his appearance at theUnited Nations and a high-stakes summit with China’s Xi Jinping, all overshadowed at times by his wrangling with the White House press corps.

The president cut short his weekend at Camp David, returning to the White House unexpectedly on Saturday evening. Coming hours after Iran-backed Houthi forces fired a ballistic missile toward the Saudi capital Riyadh, it triggered speculation that some kind of U.S. escalation was on its way. But the weekend came and went without a major announcement.

Monday brought the opening of one of the president’s pet construction projects. Trump cut the ribbon on his new helipad, but the ceremony did not go quite according to plan.

The president’s words were inaudible above the wind and the noise of Marine One in the video feed. That was because there was no television pool to cover his remarks. The other four networks had pulled out of coverage in solidarity with CNN, which had been summarily ejected from the pool by a president frustrated by negative headlines.

Trump traveled to New York that night (again, without network TV cameras) for the United Nations General Assembly. His speech on Tuesday was more measured and scripted than his 2025 appearance. But it will be remembered for his warning to Iran, which he contrasted with the idea that he could yet reach a peace with Tehran.

“Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?” Trump asked. “Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”

On Wednesday, he broke with decades of protocol and traveled to Joint Base Andrews to be on the red carpet welcoming Xi, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, for a state visit.

The summit itself yielded little in the way of agreements or announcements, beyond Xi confirming that two giant pandas would be arriving soon at Atlanta’s zoo and an extension of their trade detente. There was, however, evidence of differences over AI. Xi said both nations had a “responsibility to develop and manage AI for good” while Trump said he wanted “to leave it exactly where it is” without introducing guard rails.

CNN was back at the White House on Thursday, along with Politicoand MS Now, after a federal judge ruledthat the administration had overstepped its powers in banning them from its grounds.

So what did our two political operatives make of it all?

You are reading Washington Secrets, a guide to power and politics in D.C. and beyond. It is written by Rob Crilly, who you can reach at secrets@washingtonexaminer.com with your comments, story tips, and suggestions.

Jed Babbin: B

This was a pretty good week for Trump and his crew. They lost a minor battle with the press in court, but the president made a very good deal with Denmark over Greenland bases, he made a good speech at the U.N., and had a relatively good meeting with China’s Xi.

Predictably, CNN, MS Now and Politico’s reporters sued and won their way back into the White House after being banned by Trump & Co. It’s over now, except for the amazing anti-Trump bias shown by those media outlets. It’s not a big deal by any measure.

The Greenland deal, made with both Denmark and Greenland, makes permanent the U.S. presence and basing rights in the island nation. It also excludes Russia and the NATO nations from having bases there. If you look at a globe (or any world map), you can see how critical Greenland is to the U.S. plan for a “Golden Dome” missile defense. It has all come together under Trump’s deal, which is a very good thing. There was a hint that the deal included mining rare earth metals, which we are being deprived of by China, but no confirming details.

Trump’s big U.N. speech was nearly overshadowed by speeches from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and others. But it wasn’t. Trump said that Iran’s choice was to become a great nation or be annihilated. (Previous threats like those haven’t come to anything.)

Pezeshkian said repeatedly that Iran was winning the war and that the U.S. had no choice but to comply with Iran’s demands.

Netanyahu called out several nations for their hypocrisy and condemned New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani for trying to block Netanyahu from giving the UN speech by invoking the bogus International Criminal Court warrant against him. Netanyahu had a lot to say, and he didn’t leave anything out.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (Communist-Vermont) said he wants a treaty between the U.S. and China to govern artificial intelligence. Both Trump and Xi nixed that idea. Bernie, as usual, is left out in the cold.

Jed Babbin (@jedbabbin) is a Washington Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

John Zogby: D-

The president hosted Xi of China and secured some deals, but they were overshadowed by reports that China and Iran are moving closer together.

Trump also delivered a speech before the United Nations General Assembly in which he threatened to “annihilate” Iran if it did not promise to end its nuclear program and accede to U.S. peace demands.

Several whistleblowers inside the Pentagon called Secretary Pete Hegseth the “worst defense secretary” in history, referred to the Iran war as “a war we have no business continuing,” and said that it has “less support inside the Pentagon than among Americans” as a whole.

The U.S.-Denmark deal over Greenlandwas signed in New York, but it is hard to see how it has moved the ball forward in any way.

It emerged that eight more sailors aboard the under-supplied USS Abraham Lincoln attempted suicide as they faced 10-month deployments.

A federal court has ordered the president to reinstate CNN, MS Now, and Politico to the White House press pool, and an article now suggests that the president himself recognizes that he is a drain on the GOP’s chances of holding on to a majority in Congress in the fall.

John Zogby (@ZogbyStrategies) is the founder of the Zogby Survey and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His latest book is Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read Polls and Why We Should. His podcast with son, managing partner, and pollster Jeremy Zogby, can be heard here.

Socialism is now more popular than Trump

Last week, we brought you a warning from the American Principles Project that socialist solutions to the affordability crisis were finding traction with voters.

“Say what you want about the tenets of socialism, dude, at least it’s an ethos,” might be the Walter Sobchak line here, illustrating not so much the problems with nihilists but that Republicans have yet to define their solutions to rising prices.

Anyway, polling shows that Republicans are going to need to step up fast.

The latest Gallup poll of American attitudes toward five economic models shows that 43% now have a favorable impression of socialism. That is more than approving of Trump’s performance in office, which stands at 35%.

“Since 2010, positive views of big business have fallen by 14 percentage points, free enterprise by nine points and capitalism by six points,” runs its analysis. “Small business is the exception, with views of it unchanged.

“Meanwhile, positive impressions of socialism have risen by seven points.”

The latest shift, taking its rating over 40 points, comes among independents. Another sign that Republicans will have their work cut out for them in the midterm elections.

Quote of the day

If Avril Haines isn’t your favorite brothel-buying former United States Director of National Intelligence, then what are you even doing? She tells the story of how she bought Helen’s Hollywood Show Bar on a whim (complete with soggy mattresses in the upstairs knocking shop) in her Lunch with the FT interview (paywalled but always well worth the money).

But what caught Secrets’ eye was the question about whether Joe Biden was up to the job at the end of his time in power.

“What I can tell you is that foreign policy was always his love. Did he call a president by the wrong name? Sure. But I never had a question about whether or not he was present and capable of understanding what we were saying and reacting to it. Even in meetings in the last few weeks, he was there.”

He was present and capable of reacting. Just how I would like to be remembered.

Lunchtime reading

Did Putin really think I was a spy? A powerful extract from the new book by Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was arrested in Russia on trumped-up charges, convicted of espionage, and only freed after spending 16 months in detention.

This is the biggest reason why a blue wave is probably coming: It is the same reason that helped propel Trump to power in 2016, but the lessons seem to have been lost on Republicans.