It could be remembered as a landmark moment in U.S.-China relations: the arrival on Wednesday evening of China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, in the United States, where he was greeted by President Trump at Joint Base Andrews.
But because of Mr. Trump’s continuing standoff with the White House press corps, no major network camera captured the proceedings.
Since Monday, the networks that operate the White House TV pool — ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC — have declined to film Mr. Trump’s public events as an act of solidarity with CNN, which, along with MS NOW and Politico, has been barred by the Trump administration.
Because of a quirk in timing, an unusual scene unfolded on the Andrews tarmac as reporters waited for Mr. Xi’s plane to land.
Crews from CBS, Fox News and NBC had set up their camera and audio equipment earlier in the afternoon, because a federal judge in Washington was hearing arguments in a lawsuit filed by the three banned outlets to restore their access to the White House.
If the judge had issued a ruling from the bench to suspend Mr. Trump’s press ban, and if the TV pool had decided to resume operations, the crews would have been ready to broadcast live footage of Mr. Xi.
But the judge, Timothy J. Kelly, declined to issue any order, saying he needed time to weigh his decision. So the network crews dismantled their equipment and departed before the Chinese leader arrived.
Some smaller TV networks were on-hand at Andrews, including One America News and the Right Side Broadcasting Network. LindellTV, a fledgling digital news site founded by Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow, was there as well.
The Associated Press captured video of Mr. Trump’s greeting of Mr. Xi and made the footage available to its subscribers, but the wire service said it would not stream the feed on its own platforms. “We continue to stand with our colleagues at other news organizations who have had their access restricted,” an A.P. spokesman said.
On Thursday, the president has a full day of high-stakes meetings with Mr. Xi. Usually, footage of a high-stakes summit of two global leaders would be scrutinized for every minute aspect of the leaders’ body language and interactions.
It remained unclear if Mr. Trump’s ban would still be in effect on Thursday, and how that might affect the networks’ coverage plans for the day’s events.
Katie Robertson contributed reporting.
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