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Thursday, September 24, 2026
ANNALS OF TRUMPI$TAN: State dinners were once grand public moments. Under Trump, they’re private affairs.(Roxanne Roberts, WaPo, September 24, 2026)
From The Washington Post:
State dinners were once grand public moments. Under Trump, they’re private affairs.
These most glamorous of presidential events were historically on full display, revealing much about soft diplomacy and Washington relationships. Not anymore.
8 min
Chinese President Xi Jinping during a state dinner with President Donald Trump in Beijing earlier this year. (AP)
One of the most important events of the Trump administration takes place Thursday night: A White House state dinner honoring Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The evening is the epitome of soft diplomacy — an opportunity to smooth the often rough relationship between the United States and one of the world’s superpowers.
The official guest list will not be released until the dinner is underway, but a swath of tech leaders are expected to attend.Some of these billionaires, including Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Apple chairman Tim Cook,accompanied Trumpon his state visit to China in May.
“Thousands of people would love to be at that dinner,” Trump told reporters last week. “This is a very tough ticket for me. I’ve told a lot of very good friends of mine, ‘You just can’t come.’”
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama greet Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, in 2015. (AFP/Getty Images)
But unlike many previous state dinners, most of the event will happen behind closed doors. Typically, the press had three opportunities to interact with guests and observe the dinner. The first was during arrivals, when the guests were announced and entered the area known as Booksellers, a foyer where reporters and photographers were assembled. Everyone was photographed, and many of the invited VIPs stopped to answer questions. The second was at the beginning of the dinner, when a small group of reporters were escorted into the room for remarks and exchange of toasts; it was also a chance to gauge the mood of the night and watch people interact. The last glimpse came after dinner, when reporters had another chance to see the crowd before the entertainment began.
However, after the demolition of the East Wing, press coverage of April’s state dinner for U.K.’s King Charleswas limited to the exchange of toasts. With Trump’s ban of CNN, Politico and MS NOW and the resulting television boycott, it’s unclear how much information will become part of the public record. If this state dinner is similar to the one in April, there’s likely to be no guest photographs, no interviews and no real sense of how the two world leaders and their guests interacted. (Unless Trump again breaks protocol —he detailed private conversationswith the king during his toast.)
Which means no opportunity to ask the invited business leaders and billionaires about the very serious concerns surrounding this dinner: Recent warnings concerning artificial intelligence, Trump’s financial interest in the rapidly emerging technology or the competition between American and Chinese companies.
Queen Elizabeth II at a state dinner in 2007. (Getty Images)
State dinners, which are organized by the Office of the First Lady, are the most visible and glamorous side of American diplomacy and often set the stage for long-term trade and treaties. They traditionally occur after months of behind-the-scenes negotiations and honor longtime allies or emerging democracies, which scholars study as symbols of presidential priorities.
“For a historian or researcher, being able to peer into these dinners, to see who is coming, how they end up behaving, is just singular and critical — they are scripted events, but also spontaneous, and so there is endless nuance and clues that we can glean about an administration’s ethos and purpose,” said Azadeh Moaveni, author of the upcoming “The East Wing: Power, Intrigue, and the Untold Story of America’s First Ladies.”
The last White House state dinner for China was in September 2015 when President Obama welcomed Xi. The guest list, like now, was full of business titans: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Cook, then-Disney CEO Bob Iger, DreamWorks CEO Jeffery Katzenberg and philanthropist David Rubenstein, to name a few. It was easy to read the tea leaves: These companies were eager to expand into the lucrative Chinese market, with the help and blessing of the Obama administration.
Apple chief executive Tim Cook arriving with former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson at the 2015 state dinner for Xi. (AFP/Getty Images)
Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, arrive for the 2015 state dinner for Xi. (AFP/Getty Images) Deesha Dyer, who was working her first state dinner as the White House social secretary, said singer/songwriter Ne-Yo was asked to perform because the Chinese first lady was reportedly a fan.
“I will never forget that he starts singing, and he’s singing his songs, and Madame Peng — she got up and started dancing. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening,” she said in an interview for the Obama presidency oral history project.
An invitation to a White House state dinner has always been one of the most exclusive and coveted in Washington. In the past, offices from the White House and State Department submit names for consideration: The political office suggests members of Congress who might be helpful. The first lady’s team offers people who support her pet causes. Top donors and business leaders with interests in the country being honored typically get on the list, as do celebrities, prominent individuals with ties to that country, cabinet secretaries and a few reporters. There’s no set limit, except the capacity of the space: The State Dining Room can seat 130 people; the East Room about 250. The new ballroom is expected to hold about 1,000 guests.
Princess Diana tearing it up with John Travolta in 1985. (Getty Images)
Occasionally, a state dinner becomes an instant classic. Princess Diana danced with John Travolta at the 1985 dinner hosted by President Reagan (guests included Clint Eastwood, Neil Diamond, Tom Selleck, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Beverly Sills, Leontyne Price and astronaut Alan Shepard). President Clinton’s 1998 state dinner for Tony Blair featured performances by Stevie Wonder and Elton John; guests included John F. Kennedy Jr., Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford and Carol Channing. And some become famous for who’s not on the list: The party crashers at Obama’s 2009 state dinner sparked a congressional inquiry into security lapses.
Tony Blair and Bill Clinton with Elton John and Stevie Wonder. (Joyce Naltchayan/AFP/Getty Images)
Most dinners, of course, are more low key — still elegant, but more about status and access than celebrities or headlines. The names of invited VIPs reportedly attending highlights Trump’s reliance on billionaires — especially technology leaders — and the business and financial communities. How that translates to future trade is hard to assess — Trump’s trip to China in May was filled with pomp and ceremony (a band played “YMCA” during dinner) but little agreements on AI or tariffs.
And there’s always value in knowing who made the list and why. Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) asked the Senate Judiciary Committee this week to investigate Umar Kremlev, the Russian oligarch who paid for Donald Trump Jr.’s lavish wedding after-parties in the Bahamas. For the same reason, state dinner guest lists are scrutinized for any past or future connections and conflicts. The White House Historical Association said it does not keep a separate archive of guest list; they are typically preserved by presidential libraries.
President Donald Trump greets King Charles III for a state dinner in April. (AP)
This will be the second state dinner of Trump’s second term; he hosted two (for France and Australia) during his first term. April’s dinner for King Charles was heavy on Trump-friendly guests: All six conservative Supreme Court justices, several cabinet secretaries, billionaires, conservative media personalities and several members of the Trump family.
“The whole planning and performance of a dinner were a microcosm of how the administration handled politics, and guest lists were of course central to that,” Moaveni said.
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