welcome back. i m stephanie ruhle. a new report says the greatest growing threat to the united states is china. a source reveals china has, quote, outlined strategies for 2018, 2025 and 2050, all designed to displace united states as the dominant global economic and national security superpower. we re seeing one of the economic battles playing not realtime with threats of a trade war easing, after president trump puts his call to impose tariffs on china on hold. this all started after president trump claimed the u.s. lost $500 billion on trade with china last year. but that figure, it doesn t pan out. the u.s. ran up a trade deficit with china of 375 billion bucks in 2017. and u.s. firms actually ran up a $39 billion surplus in services with the chinese. and it s really important to
agreed to expel any russian diplomats, would not have agreed to close the consulate in the seattle. he says he s the toughest ever. that doesn t pan out. it s clear when you report inside this administration that is almost everyone to a t in the administration those in the cabinet, those on the national security council are in agreement with a very aggressive and adversarial posture with russia. it s the president time and again they have to convince to come along and authorize these moves. phil, thanks for being with me tonight. thank you. president trump today crowed about the man he nominated to be secretary of state cia director mike pompeo we now know traveled to north korea over easter weekend to meet kim jong-un directly even though he s not been confirmed by the senate. i think mike pompeo is extraordinary. sfefs number one at west point, top the an harvard. he s a great gentleman. i think he ll go down as truly a great secretary of state.
agreed to expel any russian diplomats, would not have agreed to close the consulate in the seattle. he says he s the toughest ever. that doesn t pan out. it s clear when you report inside this administration that is almost everyone to a t in the administration those in the cabinet, those on the national security council are in agreement with a very aggressive and adversarial posture with russia. it s the president time and again they have to convince to come along and authorize these moves. phil, thanks for being with me tonight. thank you. president trump today crowed about the man he nominated to be secretary of state cia director mike pompeo we now know traveled to north korea over easter weekend to meet kim jong-un directly even though he s not been confirmed by the senate. i think mike pompeo is extraordinary. sfefs number one at west point, top the an harvard. he s a great gentleman. i think he ll go down as truly a great secretary of state. by the way, he just left north
time there s covers i can show you from the clintons that well, you know, it s just other all congruous. yes. two points there. the first is that we have i believe six former employees of the national inquirer that were able to tell us very directly that they were aware of this being attach and kill. national inquirer would pay for the story of killing it. they were not that subtle about it internally. the second thing is that we know enough about the national inquirer s business practices to know that they don t pay for story tips unless they publish them. that s the standard process. if they re going to pay you, they ll pay you only after the tip you gave them goes to print. this one they paid to own the rights to it in perpetuity. so it s clear from what they did that it doesn t match their standard procedures for a tip that doesn t pan out, for example. shepard: the door man and the hush money. jeff horowitz, maybe we ll find out for sure a lot of things
political argument is there s an overreliance on unnamed sources. every story, it seems, when it comes to palace intrigue with this president and his administration are based on unnamed sources. they re always negative toward the administration. let me give you two examples real quick. secretary of state rex tillerson, it was reported in november, through unnamed sources, he would be stepping down, and mike pompeo would be secretary of state. four months later, that story didn t work out. there s no accountability around these things, because the news cycle moves so fast. here s a homework assignment for everybody. h.r. mcmaster, reported last week, through five sources, to nbc news, saying he would be stepping down, or at least forced to resign because kelly wanted to get him out. that s chief of staff kelly. let s see happens. a month or two months away, if mcmaster is still there, let s hold these news organizations accountable when they report these things and it doesn t pan out.