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Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) called President Donald Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping a “WTF moment,” especially when comparing the warm reception to Trump’s past criticism of the communist nation.
Tillis expressed his confusion over the Thursday meeting while speaking with CBS News’ Tony Dokoupil.
“It’s a WTF moment,” said the senator, who is retiring from the Senate in January.
Tillis said he’s a supporter of Trump the “majority of the time,” but he felt he had to call out the president over the Chinese leader’s visit, especially when the White House trip is compared to tense visits by leaders from ally nations, like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“It’s not that Xi Jinping is coming here to learn how to become a democratic, capitalist nation. Xi Jinping is trying to understand how his opposition will ultimately embrace their worldview,” Tillis said.
The meeting, he added, is “bad timing.”
“If we want to build a relationship, a productive relationship with Xi Jinping and China, we also have to hold him accountable for things that are just simply unacceptable,” Tillis said.
The senator argued Trump was far more focused on holding China accountable when he first ran and in his first term.
“I just don’t know what has changed. Whatever has changed had to have been at a confidential level, because I haven’t seen any public basis for the sea change that we see right now in our posture towards China,” Tillis said.
During Thursday’s state visit, Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for Jinping. He earned some backlash from critics over that warm reception and a moment where he mocked former President Joe Biden with Jinping inside the White House.
The visit came amid Trump’s attempt to ban MS NOW, CNN, and Politico from the White House. On Thursday while reporters from the outlets were trying to restore their credentials after a judge’s order, Trump joked that China state media was the “friendliest” press corp he’d seen.
Watch above via CBS.
The post ‘It’s a WTF Moment’: GOP Senator Calls Out Trump’s Warm Reception to Chinese President first appeared on Mediaite.
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