The Message Is Paid For

A balcony, a frown, a state visit

On September 24, 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House for a three-day state visit. It was Xi’s first visit to Washington in more than ten years, and the moment arrived after a year of public sparring that had become routine. Trump’s offbeat style of diplomacy had put the countries at odds, indirectly and directly, from a July 2026 speech in which he claimed China had meddled in the 2020 U.S. presidential election — an accusation the Chinese foreign ministry called baseless — to the on-again-off-again trade war that kept markets guessing.

The welcome was formal and choreographed. After a Silent Drill Platoon Review, the four figures departed a balcony together: a military aide, first lady Melania Trump, President Trump, President Xi Jinping and first lady Peng Liyuan. The photo taken that afternoon by Getty photographer Chip Somodevilla spread quickly, cropped and recirculated on social media with captions about a true nature revealed. The image is authentic. In the original frame the Trumps are looking at the camera, their faces set. A couple of seconds later Somodevilla shot another frame in which the frowns were less pronounced. No verifiable information emerged about why the expression appeared at that moment.

The visit was billed as a discussion of trade practices, artificial intelligence and furthering strategic stability between the countries. In the same period, a U.S. ambassador to China, David Perdue, said President Trump had offered to sell arms to Xi Jinping. The White House later said the U.S. had no plans for such a sale. Also in late September, Dario Amodei, chief executive of Anthropic, was set to dine with the president at the White House for a private dinner. Trump has dismissed Amodei’s cautions.

The meeting underscored a pattern that has defined the second term: a willingness to engage directly with Beijing while publicly casting the relationship in confrontational terms, and a communications style that treats every encounter as a piece of political theatre. The balcony moment became a symbol of that tension — two leaders side by side, two first ladies behind them, and a public that read the expressions as a verdict.

The press pass becomes a privilege

Three days after the Beijing visit, the administration’s relationship with the domestic press was escalating. On September 18, President Trump announced on Truth Social that CNN, Politico and MS NOW would be barred effective immediately, citing reporting he called FAKE NEWS. He said the organizations purposely write negative news in order to diminish Republicans and a Republican administration.

The White House press release on September 21 argued that access changes are nothing new and that Democrat administrations have restricted, punished and locked out the press for years. Experts pushed back. Director of the Free Speech Center Ken Paulson said Trump’s action is singular and unprecedented, a full ban of multiple news media, targeting organizations because they are publishing content he finds unflattering. That, Paulson said, violates the First Amendment prohibition against government using its power to punish ideas.

Professor Amy Kristin Sanders called the action unprecedented, particularly in light of President Trump’s public stance about why he banned the news organizations. What the Trump administration has done is revoke access for news organizations that have already been granted press access while publicly saying it is because President Trump doesn’t like the way he is being covered.

U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the policy on television during the second week of the credentialing dispute. He argued the administration was permitted to ban the three outlets because it is a privilege and not a right to be there. The president was sick and tired of what he considered inaccurate reporting, Blanche said, and offered no evidence for his claim. Pressed by the interviewer to point to a report the administration objected to, Blanche suggested any negative reporting about Trump must be inaccurate. There’s not even a real dispute that the information coming out of CNN and some of these other networks is wholly and completely, almost 100 percent negative toward the president.

A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order requiring the White House to temporarily restore the credentials of affected journalists, and they were allowed entry to the executive complex. On Saturday, CNN said its journalists were barred from joining the press pool traveling with the president on Air Force One. Blanche said the president hasn’t denied access, that’s not the right way to describe it. He added that the White House routinely decides who can go on Air Force One, and that it’s common every time the president travels that he and his team decide which reporters get to travel.

The dispute unfolded as polling showed a gloomy landscape for the administration with just over a month before the federal midterm elections in November. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found Trump’s overall public approval rating at 32%, an all-time low. Confidence in the news media polls lower, with just 28% expressing a great deal or a fair amount of trust in newspapers, television channels and radio outlets to report the news fully, accurately and fairly, according to a 2025 Gallup survey.

The taxpayer buys the ad

While the press ban dominated the news cycle, a quieter controversy over taxpayer-funded messaging was building. The White House was expanding a taxpayer-funded advertising campaign to promote Trump’s political agenda before the November midterm elections. Republican Senator John Kennedy told CBS News on Sunday there ought to be a rule against such spending, before tacitly admitting such spending is probably illegal.

The ads were described as public service announcements. One featured a 30-second highlight reel of Trump’s second presidency, punctuated by on-screen text driving his political agenda and suggesting Democrats are communists. The spot ended with the line Paid for by the US Government. A second spot aired nationwide on Saturday during a college football game between Ohio State and Illinois on Fox, and again during Fox News Sunday. It shows a moody black-and-white shot of Trump staring into the camera as the soundtrack plays the closing riff of a campaign speech he gave dozens of times in 2023 and 2024. The audio includes the line This is the final battle, and references to demolishing the deep state, expelling warmongers, driving out globalists, casting out communists, Marxists and fascists, routing the fake news media, and liberating the country.

The rhetoric was written into Trump’s standard campaign speech as early as July 2023, and then repeated at dozens of rallies and appeals for donations. The ad was created for Trump’s 2024 election campaign and was posted on his Truth Social account in 2023 and 2024 with a plea for funds from supporters. It was even played on giant screens during the 2024 Republican National Convention before Trump’s speech accepting his party’s nomination. When it was broadcast during the convention by C-SPAN on 18 July 2024, the ad was identified as material provided by the Republican National Committee.

Kennedy called the spending masterclass dumb when it involved a previous official, and said no public official should spend public money on private ads for themselves. He also volunteered opposition to Trump’s drive to put his own name on public buildings, saying there is such a statute in his home state.

The campaign raised questions about the Hatch Act, a law that bars government workers from partisan campaign activities. The argument was made that any government employees who worked on the first pro-Trump ad or used government resources to make it may have committed a felony violation.

Oversight, impeachment, and a Republican split

House Democrats were preparing a vast oversight agenda in the event they sweep control of the chamber from Republicans in the November elections. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said there is a cost to the American people of the out-of-control corruption. If folks have been stealing from the American people, shortchanging the American people or screwing over the American people, we are going to hold the crooks accountable.

The undertaking spans several House committees. Democrats are asking about money-making by Trump and his family, whose wealth has grown dramatically since he returned to the White House in January 2025. They are investigating potential civil rights violations of Americans killed protesting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations and of detained immigrants being deported to faraway countries. They have fought the closing of the Kennedy Center, launched investigations into private funding of the America at 250 celebrations and tracked the shuttering of federal operations, including the U.S. Agency for International Development.

New questions emerge daily, including the Trump family’s recent acknowledgment that a weekend wedding party for the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. was partly funded by a Russian oligarch with reportedly close ties to the Kremlin.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, in line to become chairman of the Judiciary Committee, characterized the issues as gargantuan. We need to zero in quickly on the forms of systemic corruption that have cost the public huge amounts of money, and where there are legislative cures available.

Impeachment of the Republican president and Cabinet officials is not off the table. Jeffries said we haven’t ruled anything out, and we haven’t ruled anything in. Democrats will more likely focus their impeachment efforts on Cabinet members. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth already faces articles of impeachment from a Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, over his leadership at the Pentagon and his management of the Iran war.

Ranking Democratic lawmakers were beginning to chart investigations they plan to tackle. Rep. Robert Garcia of California, top Democrat now on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, outlined five priorities, including Trump family business dealings, the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and ICE operations. He also mentioned the Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as well as broader allegations of corporate corruption.

Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the committee plans to investigate Trump’s international dealings, including around the Iran war, and expects the committee will also look into the administration’s Venezuela operations — from the military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific waters to the U.S. partnership with a private company to develop and access the South American country’s oil.

The White House is likely to play hardball if confronted with investigations, and Democrats are bracing for an administration that potentially ignores subpoenas or refuses to turn over paperwork that lawmakers are demanding.

The party fractures

Even within the Republican Party, Trump’s political communications strategy is creating friction. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina criticized Donald Trump for the president’s support of Ken Paxton over incumbent John Cornyn in the Texas Senate Republican primary. He made a colossal mistake, Tillis said. John Cornyn’s a great member of the U.S. Senate. Paxton has his challenges. We would not be spending tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in Texas if Cornyn had won.

Trump endorsed Paxton just days before the Texas attorney general defeated Cornyn in the May primary and advanced to face Democratic candidate James Talarico in the general election on 3 November. Paxton is struggling to overcome a series of political scandals. He was impeached in 2023 after being accused of corruption and later acquitted in a trial in the Texas senate. He was also indicted on charges of felony securities fraud, but the case was dismissed after a 2024 pretrial diversion agreement. In July 2025, his wife of 38 years, Angela Paxton, filed for divorce on biblical grounds, citing adultery.

Tillis is one of a handful of Republicans to repeatedly break with Trump and publicly criticize the president’s decisions. In April, he spoke out in defense of the NATO military alliance after Trump said he was absolutely considering withdrawing the U.S. from it. Any president that contemplates attempting to withdraw from NATO is not only fulfilling Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping’s greatest dreams but would be undermining America’s own national security interests, Tillis said at the time.

The communications arc is clear. A president who returned to the White House in January 2025 is using the apparatus of government to amplify his own image, limiting access for outlets he dislikes, funding ads that echo campaign language with taxpayer money, and presenting diplomacy as performance. The opposition is mobilizing for investigations, impeachment is not ruled out, and even some Republicans are warning that the tactics are costly.

With a month to go before the midterms, the story the administration is trying to tell is one of strength and resilience. The story the country is being shown is one of frowns on a balcony, banned press passes, and commercials paid for by the public that sound like a campaign rally. Whether the electorate accepts the message will be decided not by the White House’s control of the microphone, but by how many Americans are tired of hearing it.