Warren: Trump loves power Xi represents

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Wednesday criticized President Trump’s decision to greet Chinese President Xi Jinping with fanfare during the leader’s arrival at Joint Base Andrews.

“This is actually pretty consistent for Trump,” the senator told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “He loves dictators, and he loves the power that Xi Jinping represents, and I think this is the president really saying to the leader of China, ‘Don’t hurt me.’”

Xi is visiting the U.S. for a three-day state visit that has drawn criticism from Democrats and some Republican lawmakers.

In a Senate floor speech on Tuesday, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said he would have advised the president to “not invite Xi Jinping to Washington for such a lavish welcome.”

On Wednesday, the president and first lady Melania Trump greeted Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, at the end of a 100-foot red carpet. The welcome ceremony included a cannon salute, a 21-person honor cordon and color guards displaying the U.S. and Chinese flags.

The visit follows a bilateral summit between the two leaders in Beijing earlier this year, where Trump was greeted by Xi upon arrival at the Great Hall of the People with a military welcome and groups of schoolchildren holding flowers and waving flags.

During Xi’s visit to the nation’s capital, the leaders are expected to discuss trade and the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence industry.

Warren, who has called for a pause on advanced development amid concerns about the dangers of the technology, urged the president to cut off the sale of critical AI chip technology to China.

“That’s where the president should start,” she told Collins on Wednesday.

“And then, having made clear that we’re going to cut off that supply for China, we should sit down and start negotiating with China for better constraints on AI overall to make sure we are keeping our people safe, that we are keeping the world safe,” the Massachusetts Democrat added.

Trump, who has repeatedly brushed aside rising concerns about the potential dangers of AI, said Thursday that the technology “will be a big topic of discussion” during his meeting with Xi.

“I want to leave it exactly where it is. That is China’s position also,” he wrote on Truth Social , adding that the Justice Department is “our guardrail.”