Jimmy Barrett and Shara Fryer take you through the stories that matter on the morning of 07/18/2019, including: China’s economic growth slowed by more than expected in the second quarter, official statistics showed Monday. The economy grew at a 6.2 percent annual rate in the April through June period, the slowest quarterly expansion in 27 years. U.S. tariffs and uncertainty around trade negotiations weighed on growth. Is this a sign that President Trump’s tariff policies are working? Media critic and “MediaBuzz” host Howard Kurtz questioned the media’s use of “racist” as a declaration to describe President Donald Trump’s recent tweets. He went on to add that it should be left up to the audiences of these media outlets to determine as to whether they were “racist” or not. “I think a better approach is for journalists — and I’m not defending the tweets by the way – is to lay it out but not say it’s racist because that goes to motive,” he continued. “I prefer the way that our colleague John Roberts did it at the White House when he said to the president, ‘Does it concern you that these tweets are seen as racist and are being embraced by white nationalists?” Republican Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen has launched a political action committee to help defend the GOP majority as Democrats push to take the lower chamber in 2020. Bonnen, an Angleton Republican, has started the group, Texas Leads, with $3 million from his campaign account, his team announced Monday. The political action committee will focus exclusively on reelecting GOP members to the House — a move consistent with Bonnen's insistence that incumbents do not campaign against one another.