WASHINGTON — A military chorus entertained President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping with a medley from “Les Misérables” during Thursday night’s White House state dinner — despite one of the selections being restricted in China for encouraging dissent.
As Trump and the Chinese “president for life” dined with assorted oligarchs, a military band marched into the East Room playing “Do You Hear the People Sing?”, in which discontented Parisians anticipate an attempt to overthrow their repressive government.
China censored online distribution of the tune after pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong adopted it as an anthem during anti-Beijing protests in 2019.
QQ Music, the Chinese equivalent of Spotify, removed “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from “Les Miz” albums, citing copyright reasons — despite other songs from the show remaining available, The Economist reported at the time.
If Xi was perturbed by the music choice, he did not show it.
Over tea Friday morning, the Chinese leader thanked the US president for his hospitality during the heavily stage-managed visit, which featured many moments of public warmth between the two, and few opportunities for journalists to ask questions.
“Everything is done to the highest order of perfection, and there is thought in every little detail, and it’s greatly appreciated,” Xi said.
The press pool was not in the room for the musical portion of the state dinner, but clips of the band playing the showstopping “One Day More” were posted on social media by several attendees, including Trump aide Dan Scavino, former DOGE spokeswoman Katie Miller and first son Eric Trump.
A lengthier video that included the band playing “Do You Hear the People Sing?” was uploaded to the Facebook page “Canadian Voices for Freedom.” It’s unclear from whom the video was sourced.
The dinner was open to just 134 guests, at least 21 billionaires of whom were billionaires. Tech titans were well-represented, including Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Google boss Sundar Pichai, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, computer titan Michael Dell and former Apple executive chairman Tim Cook.
Trump is a devoted fan of “Les Miserables,” which debuted on Broadway in 1987, and has made both “One Day More” and “Do You Hear the People Sing?” a staple of both political and official events.
Under the specter of criminal prosecution, Trump famously made “Do You Hear the People Sing?” his walkout music as he launched his 2024 presidential campaign at Mar-a-Lago in November 2022.
