A video of uniformed U.S. personnel on their hands and knees making last-minute adjustments to a red carpet for Chinese President Xi Jinping sparked outrage Wednesday.
The 12-second clip circulating online showed several people hurriedly smoothing and clearing the carpet at Joint Base Andrews as Chinese officials watched from the doorway of Xi’s aircraft.
“I hate watching Trump use our military to roll out the red carpet for autocrats,” wrote retired Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath, a former Senate candidate. “Our men and women in uniform didn’t swear an oath to be props in some authoritarian ego-stroking spectacle. It’s beneath them—and beneath the United States.”
MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski called the scene “a perfect metaphor for where we are with Trump.”
“Our military on their hands and knees wiping off the red carpet for the Chinese,” he told his X followers.
“How humiliating for the United States,” the official MeidasTouch account added. Network co-founder Ben Meiselas called it “utterly humiliating.”
Sarah Matthews, a former Trump White House deputy press secretary and current Bulwark contributor, contrasted the moment with Republicans’ attacks on Democrats.
“The GOP’s entire midterm pitch: Democrats are socialists and communists hellbent on destroying America,” Matthews wrote on social media. “Trump this week: Starts it by praising a socialist and ends it by rolling out the literal red carpet for a communist.”
Xi arrived Wednesday for a high-stakes state visit and talks with Trump.
“What a complete waste of time and embarrassment,” liberal commentator Lucas Sanders wrote on X.
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