It was just a fun little dinner for the people deciding the future of humanity.
The amount of power concentrated at the head table alone was dizzying. The American president and the Chinese president, dining by candlelight with Elon Musk, Jensen Huang and Tim Cook, all of them sitting in the State Dining room of the White House at this moment that many in Silicon Valley warn could be the last before mankind stumbles into the A.I. apocalypse.
Standing before a room chockablock with A.I. moguls, billionaires and politicians, President Trump decided to depart from his prepared remarks. Now that he finally had these people together in one place, he could talk about his important plans. The ones he’s been working on nonstop ever since he returned to the White House.
“If I could go off-script, just for a second,” he said.
The sound of rich people clapping filled the room. Suspense!
“I just want to say …” the president continued.
“… I’d like to invite everyone in the room to visit through that beautiful curtain in the back — The door, it’s all lit up, and looks beautiful. It’s one year away from completion, the new ballroom that you’ve heard about.”
Oh. He was inviting them to take a walk through the construction site in back of the house.
“You’ll be the first people to step foot on that,” he told guests including Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman, “and we’ll do that maybe after we’re finished with the entertainment tonight.”
There was not a single mention of A.I. in his speech. Mr. Trump doesn’t buy into the A.I. panic. He insists it’s mostly just a problem of branding. A.I. needs better P.R.
If any of the tech titans and members of Chinese Politburo who showed up to the White House used the state visit to get on the same page about the direction of this terrifying new technology, they haven’t shared their designs with the public. This was a roomful of people who have many disagreements about the way forward.
The American president, for his part, just seemed happy to be playing maître d’ to the mighty.
“You will see something that I think you will really love,” Mr. Trump told them about the ballroom site. “Tonight, if we had it, we would have had way more than a thousand people, with standing room only. And this room has about 145, that’s about it.”
“Anybody who wants to walk into a construction site that’s nice and clean and sparkling, it’s our honor to have you do so,” he said. “This is in honor of President Xi, Madam Peng.”
Mr. Trump never seems more pleased than when he is hosting wealthy and powerful people at his table. The aspects of the job that so clearly delight him concern pageantry and set design, and Mr. Xi’s visit provided opportunities for plenty of it.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump took Mr. Xi around the back to show off a new helipad and the slick new driveway. “He’s an expert on stone, aside from many others, and he loves good granite,” Mr. Trump told reporters as the pair walked back inside.
Mr. Xi announced a gift of two giant pandas, named Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, who will live at the Atlanta zoo. At the dinner, Mr. Trump unveiled a rather large statue of a bald eagle to give to the Chinese autocrat.
“We hope it’ll find a nice place, a wonderful place, in Beijing,” Mr. Trump said.
Sadly for Mr. Trump, almost none of this made it onto the television networks he watches so closely. The Chinese state visit has collided with the consequences of the decision he made in a fit of pique last Friday to ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House campus. A judge ordered the Trump administration to let the banned reporters back Thursday, but the TV networks are still refusing to take Mr. Trump’s carnival live. Until his administration formally agrees to let CNN back into the White House TV pool rotation, he is not going to see those blinking red lights he loves so much.
Shortly before the dinner began, he posted one of his diatribes on his website.
CNN and MS NOW were “fake,” he wrote, because they wouldn’t cover “one of the Biggest and Most Beautiful Events to take place in many years, the arrival at the White House of the Highly Respected President of China, Xi Jinping, and his beautiful wife, Madam Peng.”
The president continued: “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. That’s why they have such poor Ratings.”
He concluded: “Tonight’s State Dinner at the White House, for President Xi, will be spectacular! The Media will be in attendance.”
Yes, the White House complex was crawling with journalists Thursday evening as Mr. Xi pulled up to the front door of the residence. But, in the spirit of solidarity with those targeted by Mr. Trump’s ban, some just ignored the spectacle.
