So who holds the best cards when Trump meets with Xi tonight?

The lead starts right now.

President Trump, just hours away from his first face-to-face with Xi Jinping,

does the Chinese leader have an upper hand in negotiations?

Well, we're going to talk to a former White House insider who

says yes, after dealing directly with China for years. And a shocking twist in a trial that

captured the nation's attention, a court overturning the murder convictions of Alec Murdoch,

the South Carolina lawyer who took the stand to his

own defense denying that he killed his wife and son. Why today's decision does not mean case

closed just yet. Plus, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is out on a book tour. He's

got a kid's book he wrote, but more interesting to us, a podcaster's real deep dive on Gorsuch's

life. She'll be here with details you have not heard before.

Welcome to the lead. I'm Jake Tapper. We begin in our world lead. We're hours away from a summit

between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping that could be critical to the U.S. war with Iran, as well as the U.S. economy.

Trump is expected to encourage China to push Iran, an ally of China, to reopen the state of Hormuz and to agree to a peace deal in the Iran war.

The stakes on such progress

are considerable. A Pentagon official now says the Iran war has just so far cost the U.S. $29 billion,

which is $4 billion higher than the Pentagon's estimate to Congress two weeks ago.

American taxpayers are already, of course, feeling the effects of the war

with Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic. The Trump administration is draining

America's emergency oil stockpile at the fastest pace on record, even faster than under Biden.

Some analysts warn that the national average for gas will eventually, if not

...