Two months ago, a narrator in an ad for Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told viewers “she worked with President Trump to take on Communist China,” as the Tennessee Republican crushes fortune cookies (an American invention attributed to China) in her hand.
Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., is currently running an ad this month saying he will “stop China from buying our land.”
And a group supporting Texas Republican Ken Paxton in his run for a U.S. Senate seat ran an ad earlier this month attacking Democrat James Talarico, claiming he “stood with China.”
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On Thursday, President Donald Trump did just that, hosting a state dinner for the Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington, one day after his aides literally rolled out the red carpet for the communist leader’s arrival.
It is the second time this week President Trump has appeared alongside a person he and his allies have vilified.
On Monday, Trump was in Manhattan and stood next to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, and said, “Hopefully, you’re going to be a great one. I’ll be able to say you’re going to be a great one.” Numerous Republicans have attacked their Democratic opponents by associating them with Mamdani.
Both Republicans and Democrats have spoken out against alleged Chinese human rights abuses, business practices, and potential challenges to national security. Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden have hosted the president of China during visits to the United States. This latest visit comes weeks ahead of the midterm elections, where Republicans are campaigning on their opposition to China.
Two years ago, Blackburn ran for re-election and told viewers in one ad, “You know what? It’s time to break some china,” as she threw a plate decorated with the Chinese government’s flag onto the ground. She reposted the video on YouTube a year later.
Republicans have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars this midterm cycle warning voters about their newer bogeyman, Mamdani. Nearly $300,000 has been spent since January 2025 on Republican ads mentioning Mamdani, according to AdImpact, the advertising monitoring company.
Trump visited China in 2017 and again this May, after which aides announced he had secured “historic deals with China, delivering for American workers, farmers, and industry.”
Trump and Mamdani met in the Oval Office in November. That meeting was so friendly it has been cited as a reason for one Republican ending their campaign for governor in New York. A month before the meeting, Republicans were planning to “weaponize” Democrats’ association with the mayor in the midterms, Axios reported.
“The mayor puts these folks under a spell,” J.C. Polanco, a New York-based attorney formerly active in Republican politics, wrote on X. Referring to Trump and Mamdani, he added, “Every time these two meet, a Republican loses their seat.”
As the midterms have drawn closer, some Republicans are still invoking the New York mayor as the kind of politician that the electorate should reject by voting for Republicans.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., a potential presidential candidate in 2028, called Mamdani an “Islamist,” and a “communist,” who “wants to seize the means of production!” A Super PAC supporting Republican Vivek Ramaswamy for Ohio governor spent thousands of dollars on an ads attacking the Democrat in that race for having “praised Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani.”
And New York Republicans ran an ad online and in Jewish newspapers this summer calling some of Mamdani’s recent rhetoric “the worst kind of antisemitism,” The New York Times reported. Even Trump has returned, at times, to criticizing Mamdani, writing in a social media post in April he was “DESTROYING New York! It has no chance!”
Trump visited Mamdani’s official residence in Manhattan ahead of the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting there. The pair told reporters they agreed conceptually to start building housing at the Sunnyside railyards, one of the few underdeveloped tracks of land in the city. At the event, Mamdani told reporters he told the president that securing legal status for Haitian migrants was a “priority for our city,” the New York Post reported.
After the joint appearance, Trump attended fundraising events for the Republican National Committee and the MAGA Inc. Super PAC, which are spending heavily in the midterms.
