If the national Democrats have a problem named Abdul El-Sayed, their Muslim Senate candidate in Michigan, Republicans have a problem named Xi, President of the People's Republic of China and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. He’s not a Republican, but he is being given the royal treatment and a White House state dinner just weeks before the midterms, even while President Trump claims Republicans are fighting communists.

State dinners are among the highest honors a U.S. president can extend to a foreign leader.

Consider the following easily obtainable facts:

• COVID-19 claimed over 1.2 million American lives, resulting in an overall death toll approximately 410 times greater than the 2,977 direct fatalities of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

• During the worst phase of the pandemic in early January 2021, daily U.S. COVID-19 fatalities regularly surpassed 3,000 to 4,000 per day, meaning the nation experienced the equivalent loss of life of a 9/11 attack every single day for multiple consecutive weeks.

Back on March 7, 2025, then-Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey secured a historic $24 billion judgment against the Chinese Communist Party for unleashing the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, Missouri announced that it would “move to collect the $24 billion judgment and, if necessary, will work with the Trump Administration to identify and seize Chinese-owned assets — a critical step in protecting Missouri’s economy and national security.”

Interestingly, the judge in the case, Senior United States District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr., is the first cousin of the late conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. He was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush in 2008

Well, the “if necessary,” in the words of that announcement, has become “absolutely necessary,” in my opinion. Yet the Trump Administration is not seeking this small financial down payment on the cost of COVID, in relation to the damage done to one state, but rather is working with the Chinese Communist Party to arrange a state dinner for Xi in Washington. D.C.

I do not think Rush Limbaugh would approve.

President Trump says Republicans are fighting communists in the midterms but he is welcoming the world’s top communist to the White House. This is the same top communist Trump accuses of interfering in America’s elections. This is the same top communist whose regime is fighting AI and the data centers in the United States.

A House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South and Central Asia just held a hearing, “Trojan Horses: Covert Foreign Malign Influence Operations in America,” which examined how China, “the world’s largest communist dictatorship ,” is behind various “Marxist foreign actors” impacting the lives of Americans, including through a funding network linked to Shanghai-based Marxist tycoon Neville Roy Singham.

I understand the feelings of Trump supporters who want to see him succeed. He has a good record overall. But giving Xi such an honor, a state dinner, undermines his entire presidency. It is beyond the pale.

This is the Red Chinese dictator who unleashed COVID-10 on the world. The Missouri lawsuit, validated by Judge Limbaugh, provided evidence that the defendant, the Communist Party of China:

• had knowledge of the existence and human-to-human transmission of the COVID-19 virus as early as September 2019 [but] engaged in a deliberate campaign to suppress information about the COVID-19 pandemic.

• ought to affirmatively conceal the risk the virus presented to the rest of the world by intentionally targeting and punishing doctors and other whistleblowers who sought to warn the public about the COVID-19 outbreak.

• engaged in monopolistic actions to hoard PPE [personal protective equipment] through both the nationalization of U.S. factories and the direct hoarding of PPE manufactured or for sale in the United States.

In addition to the suffering and death, which is continuing as COVID variants infect Americans, the pandemic caused historic drops in standardized test scores for public school students across the United States. Federal, state, and independent research tracking these trends highlights several major patterns:

• Mathematics: Math performance suffered the largest drops in recorded history.

• Reading: Reading scores saw significant drops as well, falling back to levels not seen in roughly 30 years.

Chinese President Xi’s official state visit to Washington, D.C., scheduled for September 24, incudes other invited guests:

• Peng Liyuan – First Lady of China.

• Cai Qi – Chief of Staff and Member of the Politburo Standing Committee (General Office of the CPC Central Committee).

• Wang Yi – Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Soros-trained Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had scheduled a meeting over the weekend with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng for the final preparatory talks between the two sides. Is he driving Trump’s pandering to Xi?

For his part, Trump has invited corporate and Industry executives to the state dinner and associated bilateral forums. Major American tech executives invited to dine alongside Xi include Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI), Jensen Huang (CEO of Nvidia), and Tim Cook (former CEO of Apple).

Now consider that, in the past, Trump has repeatedly demanded that China pay reparations for the global economic and human toll of the COVID-19 pandemic and used the figure of $10 Trillion.

Let’s examine the total financial impact of COVID-19 on the United States. Estimates range between $14 trillion and $16 trillion, making it the most expensive economic shock in modern U.S. history.

You can’t escape the actual human cost in terms of the premature loss of life, estimated between $3.3 trillion to $6.5 trillion. That concerns the 1.2 million killed by the virus.

I asked AI to put the $14–$16 trillion in context.

• It was two times the economic cost of the 2007–2008 Great Recession.

• It was 20 times greater than the financial toll of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Regarding the latter, to repeat, let’s consider that we just had a national day set aside to remember the victims of 9/11 and those who continue to suffer. And yet, rather than remember the victims of COVID and those who continue to suffer, President Trump is throwing a state dinner for the mass murderer behind the pandemic.

Another financial cost involves what is called long COVID and the chronic Illnesses associated with it, as well as disability, reduced work capacity, and long-term healthcare utilization for millions of survivors. That cost has been estimated at between $2.6 trillion and $3.7 trillion.

In a previous column, I discussed the COVID-related condition known as POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome). It is a chronic disorder of the autonomic nervous system—the part of the body that automatically controls involuntary functions like blood pressure, heart rate, digestion, and body temperature.

A beautiful woman we know who suffers from it is now in a wheelchair and has ballooned to 300 pounds.

An estimated 1 million to 3 million people in the United States suffer from this condition. Roughly 80% to 90% of individuals diagnosed with POTS are female.

Throughout his presidency and political campaigns, Trump repeatedly used variations of "a very good friend," "my friend," and "a friend of mine" when referring to Xi. There are so many friendly quotations that a website is devoted to them. They include: