Donald Trump’s long running admiration for authoritarian control is colliding once again with the American free press. This time, the spectacle unfolded as his White House welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping while restricting access for journalists from major American news organizations.

On Thursday morning, journalists from MS NOW, CNN and Politico returned to the White House grounds for the first time in days. A judge had ordered the Trump administration to reinstate press passes for reporters from those networks.

The reprieve did not last long. Later that evening, reporters from MS NOW and CNN were blocked from attending a White House event, despite the court ordered restoration of their access.

The event was a greeting ceremony hosted by Trump for Xi, whose country has a reprehensible record on press freedom. Xi was in Washington that week for a three day state visit.

According to Thursday’s print pool report, American and Chinese photographers were separated and brought in for two sprays with the leaders. During the second spray, Trump joked that the Chinese had the friendliest press corps.

The remark captured the absurdity of the moment. Trump was praising China’s state run media while his administration was actively fighting to prevent American news organizations from covering the White House.

The Chinese government has a long history of suppressing independent media outlets and excluding independent journalists from other countries from events in China. American presidents are supposed to challenge that conduct, even while managing delicate diplomatic encounters.

In 2016, during a trip to China, President Barack Obama publicly criticized the Chinese government for restricting press access. He argued that American leaders should continue displaying democratic values while traveling abroad.

“We think it’s important that the press have access to the work that we’re doing, that they have the ability to answer questions,” he said. “And we don’t leave our values and ideals behind when we take these trips.”

Trump has taken a strikingly different approach. Rather than demonstrate the value of a free press to authoritarian leaders, he has repeatedly praised the control those leaders exercise over information and public appearances.

During a 2019 meeting with Vladimir Putin, Trump said the Russian president did not have to worry about “fake news” in his country. The comment concerned a country where dozens of journalists have been killed or died under suspicious circumstances.

Trump displayed the same envy in 2018 when he praised how the people of North Korea “sit up at attention” for dictator Kim Jong Un. “I want my people to do the same,” Trump said.

That fascination with obedience helps explain Trump’s desire for an American press that behaves more like state run media. His administration’s efforts during the past week offered a particularly blunt attempt to push that fantasy closer to reality.

The White House promoted what it called Trump TV, complete with loud social media hype videos filled with old television clips and bad house music. The attempt to create a friendly media outlet has not attracted anything resembling a mass audience.

The Daily Beast reported that Trump TV began with roughly 8,500 streamers before its audience dropped as low as 427 viewers. That is only a tiny fraction of the millions of viewers who watch broadcast and cable news channels.

At the same time, Trump’s lawyers went to court with arguments intended to retroactively justify his media ban. Those arguments drew skepticism from the judge, and the administration was ultimately forced to restore White House grounds access for journalists from MS NOW, CNN and Politico.

The later exclusion of MS NOW and CNN reporters suggests the White House is still searching for ways to restrict coverage. Yet the courtroom setback and Trump TV’s dismal viewership show the limits of Trump’s campaign to control what Americans see and hear.

Trump may admire dictators who command obedient media systems, but he cannot simply remake the American press in their image. No matter how aggressively he tries, independent journalists are not obligated to become the propaganda operation he clearly wishes he had.