It was the first time in both terms of Trump’s presidency that he personally received a visiting foreign leader on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews.

So what did Xi do to deserve this unusual honor?

A better question: Why is Trump flattering Xi’s ego by treating him as the world’s most important visiting dignitary?

A decade ago, such ceremonial pomp might have been taken as a sign of American weakness and Chinese strength.

Today, however, it’s the opposite.

China’s initiative to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency is failing.

Xi himself was basically sidelined at this month’s BRICS summit in India; he skipped the obligatory banquet and left a day early.

Media apologists claimed he was tired, but it’s more likely that he was just tired of being ignored.

Now, just two weeks later, the American president’s impressive show of hospitality — giving him “face,” as it’s known in Chinese culture — not only massages Xi’s ego, it also provides useful propaganda fodder for his captive audience back in China.

And it costs America nothing.

Trump, on the other hand, has cost China dearly.

He has radically reduced China’s inroads into the Western Hemisphere, ousting its agents from Venezuela and the Panama Canal.

With the Cuban dictatorship apparently unable to keep the lights on, and China now permanently shut out of Greenland, Beijing’s losses in the Americas appear certain to keep piling up.

Add to this Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s “Economic D-Day” sanctions on Iran.

These are disrupting China’s financial ties with the Islamist regime, even as Iran’s attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and its threat of tolls hammer Beijing’s energy imports: China already pays $25 a barrel more for oil than the rest of the world.

China’s leader also has major headaches back home — anemic consumer spending, a collapsing real-estate market, rising unemployment levels, an aging population and a national debt three times larger than our own (thanks, in part, to Trump’s tariffs).

Meanwhile some of Xi’s domestic problems, such as his ongoing purge of senior admirals and generals, are of his own making.

Whatever the cause of these mass ousters — both coup attempts and corruption come to mind — Xi is effectively decapitating and degrading his own military command and control system.

That’s good for us, but very bad for his planned future conquest of Taiwan: It’s hard to see how the communist leader successfully pulls off an invasion of the democratic island if he has no one qualified to command it.

It’s obvious, though, what Xi and his fellow communist leaders want from the United States.

Between their strident public demands and their covert influence operations in our country, they’ve practically given us a list.

They want us to stop the tariffs, stop drilling for oil, stop deploying weapons in space, stop building data centers, stop developing artificial intelligence and stop selling defensive weapons to Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines.

Ultimately, they want to stop America’s reindustrialization so that China, not the United States, dominates the future.

The fact that Beijing is ginning up anger against American AI and data centers, while moving at breakneck speed to develop and power its own AI systems, proves the case.

And despite the recent fearmongering from US politicians on both sides of the aisle, the bottom line is that our AI must be able to outsmart China’s in order to keep us safe.

A US-China agreement placing limits on AI development is an even worse idea: It would hamstring us and give Beijing an open field to dominate — for the simple reason that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) would inevitably violate the deal.

Having been burned by China over trade during his first term, I don’t see Trump making any significant concessions to Xi this week, on AI or anything else.

In fact, the administration’s stated goal for this summit is “strategic stability,” which is to say a continuation of the status quo.

This is the right approach.

Short of some dramatic shift, the trade and economic policies now in place position America to win the competition with China over time.

This is why Trump is gladhanding the communist dictator, smiling broadly and calling him his “old friend.” (Calling him America’s “Most Dangerous Adversary” would be more accurate, but the president can be very diplomatic when he needs to be.)

After all the feel-good rhetoric and photo ops, Xi will leave this summit the same way he came — empty-handed.

Steven W. Mosher is president of the Population Research Institute and author of “The Devil and Communist China:  From Mao Down to Xi.”

Published at NY Post on Sept. 12. Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission.

Trump, joined by First Lady Melania Trump, made the unusual decision to greet Xi at Joint Base Andrews — a gesture not made by Xi when Trump visited Beijing in May. [Xi did, however, invite the president to Beijing’s Zhongnanhai Garden – home to the Communist Party’s headquarters. For foreign dignitaries, invitations here are often viewed as a sign of closeness and recognition].

The last time an American president greeted a world leader at JBA* (Joint Base Andrews) was in 1962 when John F. Kennedy met British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. (*JBA is a major U.S. military installation and the base for Air Force One.)

Trump stood at the bottom of the steps to Xi’s plane and shook his hand before escorting him down a red carpet — with a B-1 Lancer bomber making a flyover as the American national anthem played.

Six F-16s and six F-22s were lined up on the tarmac, showcasing US military might.

Trump told reporters as he returned to the White House that it was “a great greeting, and I think they appreciate it — tremendous people.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, meanwhile, appeared on Fox News to announce that the US and China agreed not to escalate tariffs until at least 2027.

“We will extend what we call the ‘Busan Agreement,’ the economic detente between the two countries that was scheduled to end on Nov. 10 — that is going to be extended until Jan. 10,” Bessent said.

“There are some deliverables that have not been perfect on the Chinese side, so we also want to see, now that we’ve sat down and told them our expectations.”

Xi’s visit is expected to touch on a wide range of tensions in the US-China relationship, including tariffs, fentanyl exports, artificial intelligence and Beijing’s role in conflicts ranging from Iran to Ukraine.

Trump has repeatedly said he believes a strong personal relationship between the leaders can notch benefits for the American people, though it’s unclear what concrete agreements may come.

Trump, seeking to force a new trade deal that rebalances the US trade deficit and to punish China’s export of illicit fentanyl, ramped up tariffs on China last year, and Xi retaliated in kind.

The trade clash saw US tariffs on Chinese goods near 150% — before a cooling off following a meeting last October meeting between Trump and Xi in South Korea, where Xi agreed to do more to quash fentanyl exports that killed about 488,000 Americans over the past decade, peaking in 2022 and 2023.

China threatened during the tit-for-tat ramp-up to impose restrictions on rare earth materials, and the US stopped advanced chip sales that Beijing could use to give it a key boost in the artificial intelligence race.

A senior US official told reporters ahead of Xi’s visit that the Trump administration is dissatisfied with Xi’s actions to reduce fentanyl smuggling.

“It does not appear that China has elevated this issue,” the official said. “China is the overwhelming, predominant supplier of precursor chemicals to the cartels in Mexico and remains so. And they have done a number of anecdotal things, including a few arrests recently, but we’d like to see much more systemic change.”

Fentanyl deaths — which Trump cited in his initial wave of tariffs last year — have dipped in the US, but remain elevated and factors such as the availability of test strips and overdose antidotes and improved border detection may have eased the impact. Still, about 35,000 Americans died in the past year.

Trump’s personal warmth with Xi has in the past been coupled with shows of American strength — with the president often recounting a 2017 visit by Xi to Mar-a-Lago. The men were enjoying dessert as Trump revealed that the US had just conducted airstrikes on Syria.

“We had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen, and President Xi was enjoying it,” Trump remembered afterward. “He was eating his cake. And he was silent.”

Published at NYPost on Sept. 23. Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission.

The following is an 8 minute clip from President Trump’s 37 minute address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, September 22, 2026. See text below the video:

…And just as we moved quickly to address problems we inherited at home, we have acted with decisiveness and speed to reshape the world stage and solve problems that have plagued us for far too long. Every leader in this room—and your great leaders, many great leaders—I know all of you very well. But they know that given only a short time to make this world better, safer, and more prosperous for our children, for the people on earth, we have to take advantage of it.

As president of the most extraordinary nation in history, I have no interest in leaving dangers to grow for another day. I do not believe in letting problems fester. They only become harder to solve. So while others have talked, I have acted. While others have spoken of peace, I have made peace. While others have ignored threats, I have confronted them. While others have talked of courage, America has shown it. While others have promised strength, I have used it to make America the most powerful country in the world.

Working with many nations in this room, we are solving decades of intractable challenges and we are settling years of unfinished business and we’re doing it well. There is no better example of a danger that was allowed to gather strength at the world’s peril than the number one sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

For 51 years, the fanatical Iranian regime has ruled by bloodshed and mass murder, spreading death and carnage and chaos across the entire Middle East and beyond. They were the bully of the Middle East, but they are the bully no more.

From the first day I entered the political arena, I’ve been unwavering. I will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Upon taking office last year, I immediately opened negotiations with Iran and offered them full economic cooperation in exchange for ending their nuclear program and support for terror. But they refused. They absolutely refused. That was a big mistake. Then in Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S. military obliterated their nuclear program beneath mountains of rubble. And again, I urged Iran to make a deal. And again, they refused.

The regime continued building a vast missile and drone stockpile that threatened the security of every American service member in the region and everyone else in the region. They also made a missile that was capable of hitting Europe and they were very proud of it. I hope the Europeans realize that Iran’s goal was to complete their mad dash to a nuclear bomb from behind this conventional ballistic missile shield. If they had succeeded, that wicked regime would have been free to spread terror and death forever, knowing that any attempt to stop them would face an arsenal of nuclear annihilation.

In America, we just marked the 250th anniversary of the worst terror attack in history, September 11th, which killed 3,000 people just a few miles from here. It’s an unbelievably terrible time. In two weeks, we will mark the third anniversary of the October 7th attack in Israel, where [Hamas] terrorists funded by Iran tortured, mutilated, and killed 1,200 very innocent civilians, including dozens of Americans and many babies. Babies, little tiny, beautiful babies. Iran’s Supreme Leader celebrated that massacre and called it a service to humanity.

The same regime slaughtered over 72,000 of its citizens this year. Recently, 10,000 were killed for protesting. Just imagine such a vile regime were ever empowered to carry out large-scale terror attacks from behind a nuclear shield. This was the reality we had to confront. A reality that far too many preferred to ignore. They all ignored it. Many presidents and many others just wanted to ignore it. They were unwilling to do anything about it. But they knew the problem.

After giving Iran every chance for a deal, I took action to ensure that neither the United States nor any nation at all would ever have to face such a nightmare, such a catastrophic problem. As a result of Operation Epic Fury, all 159 ships of their Navy are now lying at the bottom of the sea. Likewise, their air force is gone. Their radar is gone. Their anti-aircraft equipment is gone. Their missiles and drone manufacturing capacity is almost gone. Their economy is gone. The only thing that isn’t gone is inflation, which is destroying their country and is now well over 300%.

Yet, even after we agreed to a ceasefire for nuclear discussions, Iran promptly violated it with brazen acts of terrorism against civilian ships from other countries. I want to thank the UN Security Council for voting overwhelmingly to pass a resolution condemning Iran’s despicable terrorist attacks on commercial shipping. Thank you very much. That resolution, I’m pleased to say, received more co-sponsors from UN member nations than any Security Council resolution in history. That’s something.

Now we must be equally united in maintaining pressure. The United States Navy has recently escorted more than 1 billion barrels of oil out of the Strait of Hormuz and more oil is flowing than at any point since the start of the war. We’re taking 22, 25, 30, 32, and 37 ships out respectively every single day, every single night.

But I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?

But I believe we’ll make a deal right after the election because it doesn’t make sense for them not to. They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election. What they don’t realize is that I’m not running. I did that already and won in a landslide. We won in a giant landslide and I’ll be here for two and a half years. The Republican party is running and I’ll be helping them. But I am not running. I gave absolutely no credence and will not give credence to the election when it comes to Iran. It doesn’t even enter my mind. The only thing that does is that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.

The above is approximately 8 minutes of President Trump’s 37 minute address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, September 22, 2026. To watch  the full speech, go to:  The White House’s @RapidResponse47 on X or on the White House’s youtube page.

…Officers arrested the accused early Thursday morning (Sept. 10) and executed search warrants at their San Diego homes, which they claimed to be using as childcare centers, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. Eleven of those arrested are naturalized United States citizens, while one has a green card and a pending application for citizenship.

The fraudsters hail from Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan.

Image:  U.S. Department of Justice

The 12 individuals obtained California licenses to open home childcare centers. They then registered with Child Development Associates (CDA) and the YMCA to receive subsidies to help low-income families pay for childcare.

California receives funding for the aid program from the Department of Health and Human Services.

To receive the funds, the defendants had to submit monthly attendance records showing the exact dates and times they cared for each child. The accused allegedly falsified attendance records to claim they cared for the children when they actually did not.

The individuals received the payments based on the fraudulent records, according to the Justice Department.

“Today is a bad day for home daycare fraud,” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said in a statement on Tuesday. “These are the first charges alleging this type of fraud since the formation of the National Fraud Enforcement Division.”

“These fraudsters may have criminally gamed the system before. But today, the game is over,” he said.

Abdulrahman Ayman Alawad, a 25-year-old who was born in Syria, claimed his daycare looked after 23 children in March 2026 and 25 children in April 2026, the Justice Department said.

Surveillance recordings taken during 57 days of those two months showed just one day of children coming and going from the facility, according to federal authorities. It happened to be the same day a state inspector showed up for an unannounced visit.

Abdulrahman and the children showed up only after the inspector arrived, the Justice Department said. Border crossing records also showed that Abdulrahman and several other defendants were not present in the United States when they submitted attendance records purporting to care for children at their California centers.

One of the individuals, Turkiya Mamdouh Alawad, also of Syria, departed the United States on or about January 1, 2024, before returning to the country around January 30, 2024, the Justice Department said. While she was out of the country, the 63-year-old submitted attendance records to CDA and the YMCA for January 2024 and received eight direct deposits from the organizations totaling $14,970 in February 2024.

Several of the accused received more than $1 million in payments while running their schemes.

All 12 of the accused are charged with wire fraud, which carries a maximum punishment of 20 years behind bars and a fine of $500,000. Some of the alleged fraudsters have also been hit with money laundering charges, which carry the same punishment.

IRS Criminal Investigation Chief Jarod Koopman said the “takedown exposes a sprawling” and lucrative “fraud scheme.”

“By following the money, IRS Criminal Investigation uncovered patterns of deceit that revealed twelve ghost daycare operations billing for children who were never present,” Koopman said.

“This was not a victimless crime,” Koopman added. “It deprived working parents of critical support and eroded trust in programs meant to protect the most vulnerable in our communities. We remain steadfast in our commitment to safeguarding federal funds and ensuring that those who exploit public programs for personal gain are held fully accountable.”

The latest charges are part of efforts by the White House Fraud Task Force, led by Vice President JD Vance, to investigate and root out fraud throughout the United States. In May, Vance announced that the White House was suspending enrollment of home health companies in Ohio’s Medicaid program for six months following a Daily Wire investigative series into home healthcare waste, fraud, and abuse. In that series, The Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak exposed widespread alleged Medicaid fraud across the state in Ohio’s home health sector.

On Monday, the Justice Department and Small Business Administration announced that their summer crackdown on COVID-era fraud resulted in DOJ enforcement against 160 defendants who were tied to about $245 million in intended losses.

During a Kansas City press conference on Monday afternoon, Vance told The Daily Wire that officials in former President Joe Biden’s administration were aware of the fraud, calling the matter an “open secret.”

“Everybody knew people were skimming off the top,” he shared. “Absolutely, we need to be looking into the officials who are turning a blind eye to this stuff.”

As of August 2026, the Task Force says it has uncovered almost $230 billion in fraud, stopped $56 billion in fraudulent payments, and enforced more than $55 billion in indictments, civil penalties, and settlements.

Published at Daily Wire on Sept. 15. Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission.

In total, 33 of the chamber’s 100 senators are seeking reelection with at least a half-dozen of their races considered toss-ups – meaning the outcome could go either way.

RealClearPolitics’ polling average ranks Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Texas and Alaska as toss-ups. Of those seven, five are held by Republicans and two are Democrat held.

With the Senate makeup now 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats, including Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, Democrats will have to win a net total of four seats to retake control of the chamber.

“You can’t get any tighter than what we’re looking at right now. Democrats with a 50% chance to win the Senate. Republicans with a 50% to hold the Senate,” CNN polling and data journalist Harry Enten said this week. “It is even at this point, eight weeks until Election Day.”

Enten also broke down an aggregation of poll-based models, which gave the Democrats a 53% chance to win the upper chamber, and betting odds, which gave them a 47% chance to win.

Republicans need only win three of the toss-up races to keep control of the Senate, given the Trump administration’s control of the White House gives Vice President JD Vance the tie-breaking vote.

But whereas the Senate was previously thought to be a lock for the Republicans, unexpected developments in several races have made several contests more competitive than usual. Here’s a look at those races.

Alaska

GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan is facing a close reelection against former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, who has previously managed to win statewide in the typically red state. Peltola won a special election in 2022, before securing a full-term in the November contest. She lost reelection in 2024.

Complicating the race is the presence of a Republican candidate who shares the name, Dan Sullivan, on the ballot. Republicans have accused him of a bad-faith attempt to confuse voters, though he has survived challenges to his eligibility.

The off-brand Sullivan’s presence and Alaska’s ranked choice voting system are expected to benefit Peltola, who currently leads the race by an average 2.0%.

Maine

Incumbent GOP Sen. Susan Collins faces her first reelection bid since the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion.

While Collins has carved out a lane as a pro-choice Republican, she voted to confirm Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who went on to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. The 2026 contest will be her first time on the ballot since that development – in a state known to elect moderate candidates but leans slightly Democrat.

The 73-year-old Collins was initially set to face Democratic nominee Graham Platner, who ran as a progressive outsider candidate. But Platner dropped out after a series of sex scandals and was replaced by former state Senate President Troy Jackson.

Jackson leads by an average 2.3%, but Collins has a long history of outperforming the polls. In 2020, she won by 8.6% against then-state Democratic House Speaker Sara Gideon, despite most polls showing Gideon with a high single-digit lead.

New Hampshire

The state hasn’t sent a Republican to the Senate since Kelly Ayotte, who is now the governor. She won a single term in 2010. In addition, the state hasn’t backed a Republican at the presidential level since 2000.

Republicans are hoping to break the streak with nominee John Sununu, who represented the state in the Senate from 2003 to 2009 and is the brother of former Gov. Chris Sununu. He will face Democratic nominee Rep. Chris Pappas, who after winning the party nomination September 8 leads Sununu by an RCP average 2%.

They are competing for the seat of Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen who is not seeking reelection.

Ohio

GOP Sen. Jon Husted is facing a close match against former Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is hoping to reclaim a spot in the state’s delegation after losing his own to GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno in 2024.

Husted was appointed to fill the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance in early 2025. He previously served as the state’s lieutenant governor and has won a statewide election before. But the same can be said of Brown, who served three terms in the Senate.

While Ohio has moved from a swing state toward leaned Republicans in recent years, Husted may suffer from his status as an appointed office holder, who tend to underperform when placed on the ballot. Brown leads by an average 2.6%.

Michigan

The state poses the most likely opportunity for Senate Republicans to gain a seat this cycle. With Democrat Sen. Gary Peters  not seeking reelection, the November race has been boiled down to former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers and Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive.

Rogers previously lost a close 2024 Senate contest to now-Democrat Sen. Elissa Slotkin and did not face a serious primary challenge this cycle.

El-Sayed narrowly defeated Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens for the party nomination. Though polls had indicated a landslide for him, he substantially underperformed those projections and only narrowly clinched the party nomination.

Rogers has attempted to paint El-Sayed as a radical, pointing to his support from far-left organizations and his association with streamer Hasan Piker [a far left anti-semite who said America deserved 9/11].

El-Sayed has distanced himself from some groups, like the Democratic Socialists of America [although many/all of his policies are those of the socialists], rejected the “socialist” label outright, and attempted to present himself as a progressive, albeit one within the normal range for a Democratic candidate.

El-Sayed currently leads by an average 1.7% against Rogers.

Iowa

Like Ohio, Iowa has drifted toward the Republicans in recent cycles. The contest is noticeably the only toss-up in which the Republican candidate has an outright lead, albeit slim. GOP Rep. Ashley Hinson leads Democratic nominee Josh Turek, a state representative, by an average 1.8%.

The lead is substantially less than the double-digit margin President Donald Trump had in winning Iowa in 2024 but also lower than most polls overall. A Fox News poll from June showing Turek with a 4-point lead appears to be an outlier bringing down the average.

The seat is open because GOP Sen. Joni Ernst is not seeking reelection. Polymarket odds currently give Hinson a 66% chance of succeeding her.

Texas

The Lone Star State broke for Trump by roughly 14 points in 2024, erasing decades of slow Democratic gains in the Republican stronghold. But the 2026 Senate contest is a toss-up, and Democratic nominee state Rep. James Talarico currently holds a 2.4% average lead over Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Paxton has previously won multiple statewide races and even survived an impeachment attempt from members of his own party. But his longstanding beef with the establishment wing of the party appears poised to come back to haunt him.

The conservative firebrand beat out GOP Sen. John Cornyn in the party primary this year. While Cornyn placed first in the first round, he ultimately lost to Paxton in the runoff. Paxton had offered to drop out of the race altogether if Cornyn could secure passage of the SAVE America Act, a marquis voter ID bill, though Cornyn could not do so. Trump cited the SAVE America Act issue when endorsing Paxton for the runoff.

Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent for Just the News. Follow him on X.

Published at Just the News on Sept. 10. Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission.