and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. that will do it for "msnbc live." katy tur standing by. >> hi, craig, how are you? >> doing well. >> let's get this show in before the press briefing. "the washington post" reports the special counsel told the president's attorneys last month that robert mueller railroads the president a subject, not a criminal target of his inveigation. according to three people familiar with the discussions

who spoke to "the washington post." the republican party is already claiming victory. take a look at this communications e-mail from the rnc. after investigating for nearly a year, "the washington post" is reporting that president trump is not a target of special counsel robert mueller's probe. that means that after all this time, mueller and his entire team of lawyers have still not gathered enough evidence for trump to become a target. that's huge news. we'll ignore the absurdity of the rnc news from an organization the republican president labels as fake and propaganda, after all, this is a news story the president can use to try to claim something he's been claiming all along. >> was he being truthful? >> i know i'm not under investigation, me personally. >> in theory everybody tells me i'm not under investigation, maybe hillary is, but i'm not. but there's been no collusion. there's been no crime. >> but here's the thing, he is

under investigation. he's been under investigation since last june after he fired james comey and when the "washington post" reported mueller wanted to interview dan coats and mike rogers because donald trump asked them to say publicly they saw no evidence of collusion. and according to this new po"po" reporting, donald trump is not under investigation either. he is still a subject. asked federal prosecutors, and they'll tell you no. being a subject can yaeleasily changed into being a target. being hit by a car is better than being hit by a truck, i guess, but it is nothing to celebrate. paul manafort was at one point considered a subject in the investigation. he was later charged and today he's in court challenging mueller's authority as special counsel. the big difference and the

saving grace for the president is that under current justice department decisions, it is believed a sitting president can't be indicted, which is why this was actually the most interesting part of the "washington post" reporting. robert mueller told trump's lawyers he's preparing a report about the president's actions while in office, and potential obstruction of justice. he can set the ground work for congress to do what he cannot, diet him ie, impeach him. we don't know what mueller will find or if any of it will amount to substantial wrong doing by the president himself, but if mueller does find something, will we know what it is? our big question, what happens to robert mueller's report once he submits it? in just 30 minutes we're set to hear from the white house for the first time this week. before that begins, let's get to our team of reporters. ken delainny, betsy wood ruff,

carol leng. ken, first to you, what is the difference between being a target and a subject of an investigation? >> i think chuck rosenberg may have said it best. prosecutors use the term target when they're about to diet someone. the term subject is much more broad and more commonly used. another chuck rosenbergism is there are small "s" subjects and capital "s" the subjects. paul manafort was a subject of the investigation before he became a target and now he's facing multiple felony counties.

it may be robert mueller can't designate donald trump as a target until he leaves office, but that does not mean robert mueller hasn't developed substantial evidence of impeachable evidence. >> this is "washington post" reporting, carol. walk us through what exactly you guys were able to find that mueller's team is telling the white house that he's not the subject, but he's still -- not a target but still a subject. i'm twisting myself around. what was the reaction from inside the white house? what's the reaction from the president? >> to your first question, the three sort of news bullet items in this story by mysf and bob acosta is the tea told the lawyers that the president wasn't a critical target at this time. the second is that he told trump's lawyers and others that he is intending to write a

report about the obstruction of justice and the president's actions in office. and the third item is essentially that the president's lead lawyer, the main contact with the special counsel's office, john dowd, who resigned last month, actually resigned in a dispute over this interview which the president wants to do, and john dowd didn't want him to do and thought it would be legal jeopardy that he didn't need to create. >> was john dowd concerned the president would become a target of the investigation after he sat down with robert mueller's team? >> so my understanding from talking to multiple sources who talked to the president and talked to the president's lawyers is that dowd's concern was simple he did not believe the case was important or valuable or strong, and that he

believed the president had no legal jeopardy. he believed the president could have if he misspoke under oath. and he reminded the presidentf all the people that have now pled guilty in the muellerbe to charges of making false statements. michael flynn, his formal national security adviser, george papadopoulos, rick gates, all of them have said now on the on the record that they engaged in the crime. >> natasha, what are you hearing about a potential presidential interview? ty cobb didn't want one. is this reporting only going to make it harder to stop the president from sitting down with mueller? >> now that he knows he's currently not a target of the investigation, he may feel more comfortable with the idea of sitting down with robert mueller, even more comfortable than he already felt to begin with because he has shown an eagerness to be interviewed by

the special counsel if not just for optics purposes. he insists he didn't collude with russia, that the whole thing is a hoax. so he's getting conflicting advice that it would not be wise for fear of getting caught in a perjury trap. and his lawyer jay sekulow is saying if they are insisting you have nothing to hide, why not sit down with the special counsel? we saw this morning trey gowdy saying if the president feels that he did nothing wrong, he should sit down with robert mueller. but just last week we saw mueller's team actually gave trump's attorneys a list of questions, a list of topics t wt co be covered in such an interview. of course that resolved around potential obstruction of justice, questions included such things as james comey's firing, the firing of former national security adviser michael flynn.

we saw that one of the suggestions put out there was that if trump were to sit down for an interview with robert mueller he would have to tend probe by a certainly date. there's a give or take that's going on here. >> betsy, you get our big question, what happens to robert mueller's report once he submits it to rod rosenstein? >> i can't speak to his mind currently but folks in the inner circle are deeply frustrated with rosenstein. they view him as someone who hasn't been a team player in the broader question of the president's various legal issues. so that's something that should potentially give comfort to folks who would ultimately like to see any report that mueller issues be released publicly. additionally, rosenstein during his time when he was lower level within the justice department was known as somebody who liked to delegate. he didn't like making big, difficult controversial choices on his own when he could

delegate those choices to others. one example of rosenstein delegating was in 2017 when he gave a letter to the white house saying comey made a mistake by making those public comments about the hillary clinton e-mail investigation. but in that letter rosenstein didn't say comey should be fired. he was very careful. he covered his -- he covered for himself in a way that was quite political. so my guess would be that rosenstein is going to handle this politically dicey and challenging decision by deferring to mueller. my guess is if mueller wants the report to be made public that rosenstein will let it be made public. i don't think this is a decision that rosenstein is going to want to have to stand on his own. ultimately he's the boss, he's the one in charge of mueller. if mueller wants this to be released in a certain way, rosenstein will defer to him. >> i wonder how much it will depend on how explosive the report is. betsy woodruff, ken dilanian, great reporting.

joining us, joyce vance, former u.s. aory and izabeth holtzman who voted to impea president nixon and currently counsel with har rick and fine stean. i want to get to you, joyce. the process by which robert mueller has to submit a report to rod rosenstein and then it's rosenstein's decision how that comes out, to make it public, writes a report of his own, or submits it to congress and congress has to decide what to do with it. walk me through how that usually happens. >> i think it's hard to talk about how it usually happens because it's such an unusual and rare kind of a situation. but one thing that we know about rod rosenstein, he certainly has his did etractors, but he belie in the justice department as an institution. he's a firm believer in the rule

of law. so on there's a quirk here which is that much of what the evidence mueller is gathering is coming in through the grand jury. and that material they likely won't be able to release, so perhaps there will be some sort of an edited version or perhaps a summary version oth evidence. and of course congress could alys, if it chooses to, subpoena the full report and all the evidence from the special counsel's office. that can only be done by a committee chairperson and the composition of those chairs seems unlikely to send this subpoena to the justice department. but we don't really know how that will look after nevada. >> elizabeth, you've been through this process before. how does congress -- >> exactly. >> sort of. you're the closest thing we've

experienced in a situation like this. how does congress parse out a report of this nature? >> well, before i answer your question directly, let's go back to watergate. there was no report until congress finished its impeachment activities, then the special prosecutor after he looked at a whole host of people, then he issued a report. how will this be handled by congress. we had kent starr, that was a new statute. he issued a report to congress about his activities, and he recommended impeachment. that was explosive because congress immediately acted on that and they act in a partisan way. and the impeachment failed in the senate because it didn't have broad bipartisan support. in the house judiciary committee in the nixon impeachment, it was not triggered bay special counsel report. it was triggered by the american people who saw the and they sai

congress, act. >> because of the divisive nature of this investigation and the ways in which republicans are trying to make it look like it's a very partisan investigation, the president is trying to make it look like it's a partisan investigation, because of that and because of how we've seen congress react to the president and the allegations he faces, how damning does it need to be to overcome that not only among republicans on capitol hill, but for american voters to come to get and say this is something we need to get behind? >> i think that's what's going to happen here, the american people are going to insist that the report be made public and congress get it, that somehow we all have the benefit of what mr. mueller's investigation showed. we saw that with regard to the nunes report, republicans tried to put out a one-sided report, and ultimately there was too much pressure to get the whole truth out. so i think that's what's going to happen here, that if mueller

issues a report, then the public will demand that it be made public. that's what should happen. >> joyce, it's a high bar, though, in terms of finding whether or not the president had any massive wrong doing. it will be a high bar for robert mueller to convince folks that are in the president's example or independent folks who think the whole thing smells funny to them. that must be a lot of pressure for robert mueller -- [ no audio ] intent and of criminal intent. for mueller and his team, this is very much their breadbred and butter work. they will sift through evidence, whether there's direct statements from the president from which they can ascertain their intent, conversations that they were a part of that other

witnesses are telling them about, and although it is incredibly difficult to do, it always comes together in the courtroom. it will come together for mueller here. >> one other question. does that mean that it's going to be a high bar for them to decide if there's wrong doing, if it didn't meet a certain standard that's way up here, that everything else will be too hard to nail down and be concrete? looks fishy, but we can't determine without a shadow of a doubt that the president did wrong doing? >> to diet prosecutors have to believe they can convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that they have sufficient evidence of every element of a crime. that's perhaps not true if something goes over to congress for impeachment. i would expect mueller to have high standards and really to be unengaged in the proverbial search for the truth that prosecutors like to conduct during their investigations. it is a heavy bar, and it's important that it be a heavy bar

because we don't want to convict someone or ruin their good name based purely on a lack of popularity or other sorts of factors. we should only in our system of laws hold people considerabacco they do break the laws. >> joyce vance and former congressman elizabeth holtzman. ladies, thank you very much. president trump announces tariffs on china. china responds with its own tariffs. the dow plummets, could you the new economic adviser, they may not happen at al confused? usoo. that's next now there's new scotts thick 'r lawn, the revolutionary 3-in-1 solution for weak lawns. with a soil improver to strengthen roots! seed to fill in gaps! and fertilizer to feed! the result, up to a 50% thicker lawn after just one application. ♪ ♪ now yard time is our time. this is a scotts yard.

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is it possible that these stiff new tariffs against china are, in fact, a negotiating tactic? >> yes, it's possible. it's part of the process. >> the new top economic adviser suggests the tariffs o china might not happen after all, this after beijing fired back in a big way of their own announcing 25% levies on more than 100 american products including soybeans, cars, and whisky. the tit for tat has rattled the markets. the dow took a dive by 500 points, a by-product of the escalating trade tensions between the world's two largest economies. president trump took to twitter and insisted we're not in a trade war with china. instead, quote, that war was

lost many years ago by the affordable incompetent people who represented the u.s. now we have a trade deficit of $500 billion a year with intelligent property theft. we cannot let this continue. jonathan lemire with the associated press is with me, and political analyst sarah mcgregor, lead trade editor at bloomberg. guys, welcome. the president has something of a point when he's talking about china and the intellectual property theft. you were on the campaign trail with me. i can see how they sound appealing. we're going to push back on this company that's been taking advantage of us, we are going to fight for the american worker. the details of the reality of it can be much tougher, but does the white house need to face the reality when they're constantly saying things they don't

ultimately enact. >> it doesn't match up with this white house. that's sort of a telling moment, kudlow walking on the white house driveway being surrounded by reporters, sort of stammering out answers about this tariff policy that it's clear this is something that's still not totally focused as to what it's going to be. we're seeing china already announce retaliatory tariffs. they're going to have significant cost increases on a number of important industries in the united states. i saw a map of soyn producon of the united states and it's all the industrial midwest. the heart land the trump campaign made that would lay sufficient sledding for americans to defend those seats this november. >> so is this an instance where the trump team ends up trying to have their cake and eat it too, trying to claim they're going to be tough, ultimately not

enacting those things but saying we worked hard and pushed hard and ultimately we ended up getting the american worker rewards by not enacting these tariffs, just do a complete 180. >> wouldn't be the first time that he has done that where he has said a bunch of different things and lets people read into it what they want and claim victory from one reality when it's actually the other reality that's happening. this is a president who likes to talk big. doesn't like to admit he's wrong, but yes, they can claim victory and pivot in another direction. this is a president when the stock market is doing well, talk about it all the time. booming market, it's not been doing that well recently because these tariffs. that is day where the president has no public events until this

evening. he's sitting in the white house residence likely watching cable news coverage of the stock market. >> it's interesting gary cohn resigned over this. sarah, i want to bring you in. wilbur ross is being asked about the tariffs. here's what he said. >> this $50 billion they're talking about amounts to about 0.3% of our gdp, hardly a life threatening activity. we have had a big problem with trade deficit for a long time, several presidents got us into this big deficit. this is the president who's going to get us out of it. >> sarah, this is your wheel house. is wilbur ross correct in that assessment? >> i think the number one thing that americans individually want to know right now is, one, is this action going to lead to higher prices for things that i like to buy like shoes and

ipads? and two, is this going to tank the economy? is this going to lead to recession and i'm going to lose my job? at least at the stage the economic consensus seems to be no, not yet. first of all, this is just a proposed list. by the sound of it, larry kudlow, even ross in the interview said this is a track to negotiation as well. we don't know what could come of that and what's going to happen in between, but i think it's important to remember that that is proposed list. as you mentioned before, the trump administration has really tried to ratchet up the rhetoric and will it lead to action, we're not sure yet. >> someone else out there says this would totally wipe out any gains that the tax bill would have given to voters, american workers. jonathan lemire and sarah mcgregor, thank you very much. how close are we to realizing dr. martin luther king jr.'s dream 50 years after his

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days ahead. but it really doesn't matter with me now because i've been to the mountain top. like anybody, i would like to

live a long life, longevity has its place. but i'm not concerned about that now. and i've seen the promised land. i may not get there with you, but i wt you to know tonight that we aa people wilget to the promised land. >> that speech you just heard was given the night before the reverend martin luther king jr. was killed outside the lorraine hotel in memphis. as we honor his legacy, so does the nation with marches and demonstrations. joining me from memphis is tremendotre main lee. you're out there in the crowd and walking today. what's it like? i tell you what, katy tur, it's

very interesting balance between commemorating the life of dr. king and his legacy. folks from all walks of life, all ages, families coming to get to walk in those steps. hinging the issues of today, criminal justice reform, environmental justice, so on and so fort worth. here you are, 50 years later, how best do you think we can walk in dr. king's foot steps? >> by making sure his legacy is not in vain, to make sure we're fighting for good jobs, fighting for economic justice, the march on washington was a march for jobs and justice. he talked about how of all the inequalities in health care was one of the worst. it's a right for all not the privilege for a few. that's the best way we can do this. as head of the democratic party,

the way we put those into action is to get people to vote. which is why our initiative is i will vote in 2018. i see all the efforts express g suppressing the vote. we're not going to let that happen. the determination in this audience today is palpable, and that's what we're going to keep doing, maintaining the momentum. >> i think that's one interesting part of this. of course, we know dr. king, who fought for civil rights, but he also fought for workers rights. when he was killed 50 years ago he was doing his poor people's campaign. when you look at this crowd, you see a new generation singing those songs, pushing for america to do better. >> you're watching the marches, brittany. reflect for me on what it is like 50 years later and the challenges that we're still

facing. >> i'm always struck by in the days of commemoration how willing we are to remember the parts that make us comfortable. commemoration without courageous action is completely empty. and the best way to commemorate dr. king lacy is tcontin it and to continue on his path of justice. when you look at his final texts, he talked about the fact that the goal was not just the conferring of rights on people, not just the changing of singular policies, but it was a revolution of values, and that revolution of values would make us dissatisfied with the current state of reality. a revolution of values would make us dissatisfied with mass incarceration, american imperialism, so we have to allow that dissatisfaction to actually drive us toward action, not just on days like today, but every

day. >> tremaine, describe the crowd that's out there today marching in solidarity in the memory of dr. martin luther king. >> from the very beginning early this morning, what began with a few hundred pretty quickly turned to a few thousand. i was at the american federation for state county municipal employees, union workers, proud union workers who all gathered in front of the headquarters, thousand of them. i want to bring in someone. how are you doing? >> good, how are you? >> i know came from los angeles. >> i thought it was important. it shows the close relationship between civil rights and the labor movement. i think the labor movement is how we're going to make america great again. the middle class is dwindling. the union movement and the way the middle class wages are

raised. >> i wanted to bring up a quote i heardr. martin luther kin utter years ago where we talked abt at good is it to have african-americans be able to sit at a desegregated lunch counter if they can't afford it. >> one of the things that dr. martin luther king said is we can never be satisfied as long as the necessity grgro is the v police brutality. there's still horrible incidents where we see video later that show police seemingly acting very aggressively towards men that they would ultimately shoot and kill. we saw it just the other day. brittany, when you see this continuing to happen, how do we overcome that as a society? is that a problem that can be

fixed? will we still be talking about this 50 years from now? >> well, i certainly hope not, and that is why i'm committed to being hopeful in the actions that are taking place as people continue to revive this movement. just last night in memphis the police arrested several african-american people who were peacefully protesting against i.c.e., and the detention raids that have been happening all across the region. we see even up to the eve of that important occasion that the same is still happening and that our communities are not being treated with the amount of value that they deserve. so what i think is really important here is to recognize that it's a systemic take we need to move. it's not about individual conversations and individual racism, but really taking on the systems that harm people every day. >> that mlk quote was from the i have a dream speech.

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our military status quo yesterday. >> as far as syria's concerned, our primary mission in terms of that was getting rid of isis. we've almost completed that task. i want to get out. i want to bring our troops back home. i want to start rebuilding our nation. >> today also marked the anniversary of last year's chemical weapons attack in northwestern syria. nikki hal addressed the u.n. today. >> it's a sad fact just a few years ago a single chemical weapons attack would have united us in shock and anger. it would have been enough for us to take immediate action. now we have a regime that uses chemical weapons practically every other week. our lack of action has consequences. when we let one regime off the hook, others take notice.

>> for more i'm joined by courtney kube, military reporter. what exactly is happening here? are we pulling troops out or are we not pulling troops out? >> that's a great question, katy. it's one we think we have a little bit of a better handle on now this afternoon than we did when president trump first spoke about the u.s. military leaving last week in an infrastructure speech in ohio. seems now there was a meeting at the white house yesterday with his top national security advisers and president trump. we're told president trump eventually reluctantly agreed to keep u.s. military troops in syria to continue to fight against isis. the small amount of land they're still holding. it really is actually a small area in the lower to middle euphrates river valley near the

border with iraq. we've been speaking with military officials who have said there's probably somewhere between two and six months left in the fight to continue to clear that areaout. the question is,hat happens once the area is clean? we know that there are isis fighters who have gone underground. they're remaining there in the country, but what happens if the united states leaves? seems that president trump is not interested in the military presence there for any kind of stabilization efforts after they've actually cleared out the land that isis has been holding. >> is anyone reminding him of what happened after we pulled out of afghanistan and why isis was able to thrive in the first place? >> you know candidate trump was critical of president obama in his decision to leave iraq in 2011 and even blamed obama for isis, the creation of isis.

the big question is, if the united states military leaves, it's difficult to envision a scenario where just because the middle euphrates river valley is cleared of isis that all of a sudden syria will be a stable place. it will leave a vacuum. iran, russia, hezbollah will be there to fill the vacuum. >> we appreciate it. two corrupt to fail? how epa chief scott pruitt still has a job in the trump administration. unbelievable is next. people with rheumatoid arthritis. because there are options. like an "unjection™". xeljanz xr. a once-daily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. xeljanz xr can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometim fatal infa and other cancers have happened.

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late last year health and human services secretary tom price, remember that name? he resigned after it was reeled he took hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of flights on private planes at taxpayers' expense. price's resignation made sense. he used taxpayer funds for his personal benefit and the outcry was deafening. so that makes it even more unbelievable that epa administrator scott pruitt still has a job after taking chartered military flights himself and

rented a condo for well below market value. he's under skrunt for spending $43,000f taxpayer money on a soundproof booth for his office to which i ask again, who did he think was listening? koalas? to be fair, that's a small facing since he was sworn in. so why does epa administrator scott pruitt former oil lobbyist still have a job? was he a former oil lobbyist. >> he may have well have been -- he cut and pasted his own stationery. >> and the headline, too crooked to fail, why scott pruitt still has his job now. let's look at the scales out lined in your article. he lied to congress about using his private e-mail address and exploiting the safe water drinking act to give his top aides a raise after the white

house refused to do so. he is denying that. he had one aide coordinate his personal housing search in d.c. he rented a condo from an energy lobbyist for a rate well bh-- below the market valley while they were advocating for a gas pipeline which the epa approved under his watch and spend $100,000 on private flights and tom price must be unhappy about that and his decision to spend $43,000 of taxpayer money to build a sound proof phone booth in his office. why does scott pruitt still have a job? >> well, two seasons. in the short-term, scott pruitt has delivered on the trump promise to make america easy again to pollute for oil industry and other fossil fuel industries. he's delivered. the return on investment is obvious. but more importantly he's one of them. as new york tim investigators and others have shown, scott pruitt meets to coordinate strategy with fossil fuel

industry folks and these are the people that donald trump need. these aren't the dyed in the wool trump supporters who wrote checks early on. >> these are fair weather fans and those that donald trump needs to keep on his side. >> what going to be the reaction to the mountain of scandals that continues to grow? is there a breaking point for somebody even as -- not well connected but connected in a good way for this administration as scott pruitt. >> if there is a breaking point, it broke already. we've seen so many of these scandals. just lying to congress and -- irony of irony, since trump defeated hillary clinton, lying about the use of his personal e-mail server. that itself should have been disqualifying. i don't know there is a scandal at this point that could rise to that level. >> he said that he didn't know about the pay raises for two of his staffers. >> which is preposterous. first of all, where does the buck stop.

he's the epa administrator. and these are close aides and third these are the folks that scott pruitt took with him from oklahoma, young people working with him there and now work for him in d.c. >> and he just signed an order to give him more authority over drinking water. >> he used an obscure provision. what is remarkable is the one rule, don't defy president trump. dofr wh-- do whatever you want t don't go get the white house. and he went to the white house and said i want to give raises to my aides and he found a provision in the safe drinkg water act and he used that mey to pay his young proteges. >> and here is what he is saying. there are people that have long in this town done business a different way and this agency has been the poster child of it. and so do i think that because we are leading on this agenda that there are some who want to keep that from happening? absolutely. and do i think they'll resort to anything to achieve that? yes. who are the people that want to

stop this agenda in pruitt's mind? >> everybody except for the fossil fuel industry, republicans in congress and he can't argue this is a left wing conspiracy when chris christie goes on national television and said there is no way scott pruitt could survive the scandals. the fact is he is right that things were done different live. there was transparency and they responded to the freedom of information act request and turn in their travel receipts. we probably have to turn in our travel receipts when we go travel for work. he didn't even do that when he was required to do so by a republican committee. so he is right, things were done differently. what he's wrong about is that this is some conspiracy to get it. >> jay michaelson. thank you. great article and fascinating read on the daily beast. come back soon. >> be hour to follow the program on facebook, twitter and instagram. we'll be right back. there's little rest for a single dad.

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one more thing before we go. breaking news, it is national hug a news person day. formerly hug a newsman day. so cue the sarcastic memes. not all are greeting it with open arms. some would like cake or donuts. boston cream all the way. and it seems keeping that distance is fine for most americans. according to polling, just 4% of you actually want to hug >> what? >> to those we say bring it in.

for thother 96%, we imagine if you had to hug us, you might look a little like this. ♪ ♪ >> i said i didn't want the salmon. you don't get that at home. and about that poll, 8% of americans think we are wearing pajama pants or sweats under our news desk. our secret is out. lies, i'm wearing suit pants. that's going to hurt later. i feel like i've pulled something. >> same here. >> ali velshi take the show away from me before i do something stupid. >> are we going to feel a little

hug. >> all right. have a good afternoon, katy. >> i'm out of here. >> have a good afternoon. we'll take it from here. good afternoon, i'm ali velshi. it is hug a news person day. the president surrounded by a slew of headlines an instability. on the brink of a trade war but the two leaders responsible for sparking the fears are waiting to see who blinks first. president trump and china xi jinping have given about six weeks to decide whether to implement these tariffs and there is a chance that one country pulls back but the question is who will it be? the instability over a possible trade war is playing out in the stock market. this morning the dow took a plungepening below 500 points and stabilizing. take a look at chart up here. the market has progressively gotten better through the course of the day and now up.5% after opening down almost 2%. now the president's plan for syria is also in flux. the administrn