President Trump let forth a detailed denunciation of a MSNBC news personality, Stephanie Ruhle, after she suggested his new trade agreement with the United Kingdom is nothing more than “pure theater.”

On Thursday evening, Ms. Ruhle dedicated more than 10 minutes of her late-night program, “The 11th Hour With Stephanie Ruhle,” to scrutinizing a trade deal with Britain that Mr. Trump announced to much fanfare earlier in the day. During an event in the Oval Office, the president touted the agreement as a “big deal,” even though he said the “final details” would be determined later.

Ms. Ruhle then cited “sources” who said the deal is “pure theater” to “give markets hope.” Seconds later, she explained that her “sources” were Wall Street investors. Ms. Ruhle, who once worked in finance, made her name at Bloomberg TV as a pro-business host known for flattering interviews with financial magnates. She took a hard-left turn when she joined MSNBC, presenting as a vocal liberal.

Under the trade deal, goods from the U.K. will still be subject to Mr. Trump’s baseline 10 percent tariff. However, steel and aluminum imports will be exempt from the president’s 25 percent tariff, and the first 100,000 vehicles imported from the U.K. will face a lower tariff of 10 percent, down from 25 percent. Meanwhile, American beef imports to the U.K. will have their 20 percent tariff removed. 

After Ms. Ruhle and her guests attacked the framework as “theater,” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social, “I just watched an exhausted, highly neurotic Stephanie Ruhle spew LIES about Tariffs, as do many others, in order not to give me the Victory that they all see coming. Few people know Stephanie Ruhle, but I do, and she doesn’t have what it takes.”

“We’re going to make a fortune with Tariffs, only smart people understand that, and Stephanie was never known as a ‘High IQ’ person. MSDNC has become the Voice of the Democrat Party, and they should be treated as a Political Advocate with all of the Taxes and Penalties therefrom. Their Ratings are terrible, but Brian Roberts and his crew should be forced to TELL THE TRUTH,” he wrote. 

The Roberts family of Philadelphia controls Comcast, the parent company of NBCUniversal. Comcast is spinning off the company’s cable assets, including MSNBC, as a new company called Versant. At the present time, though, Brian Roberts maintains jurisdiction over MSNBC.

It was not entirely clear what Mr. Trump was referring to when he said that “few people know” Ms. Ruhle.

The host of MSNBC’s 11 p.m. hour has faced criticism in the past. In 2024, Vice President Harris gave her first major interview as the Democratic presidential nominee to MSNBC, with Ms. Ruhle as the interviewer. 

The interview came at a crucial time, when Ms. Harris was facing criticism for not taking questions and for providing responses that did not actually answer the questions. Ms. Ruhle’s interview was criticized for her questions, even from left-wing outlets such as the New York Times.

In the interview with MSNBC, the Times said that Ms. Harris “responded to the fairly basic and predictable questions with roundabout responses that did not provide a substantive answer.”

It also noted that the left-wing anchor had defended the vice president for her lack of answers and conducted an interview with President Biden in May 2023 during which she “did not press him after his stumbling answers and praised him throughout the 14-minute discussion.”

Ms. Ruhle was also criticized by the Times for not asking “tricky questions” about positions that Ms. Harris held in the 2020 campaign, which she reversed in 2024, or “what, if anything, she knew about Mr. Biden’s physical condition or mental acuity as his own campaign deteriorated.”

Ms. Ruhle also faced scrutiny after the Wall Street Journal reported on what it described as the “close ties” between the MSNBC host and the founder of Under Armour, Kevin Plank. The paper reported that Mr. Plank would frequently seek out advice from Ms. Ruhle and act on it instead of advice from the company’s management. She also reportedly traveled with the executive on the company’s private jet. 

The paper reported that the Under Armour board learned of their connection after the company “uncovered emails that showed an intimate relationship between them.” 

Ms. Ruhle and Mr. Plank both had spouses at the time of the reporting. When confronted by the board, Mr. Plank reportedly said it was a “private matter” and that there were no company funds used.

The Journal reported in 2023 that court documents related to a shareholder lawsuit showed that Mr. Plank gave Ms. Ruhle a private phone and a “special email address to communicate with him,” and that they “corresponded regularly and at all hours.” Additionally, the documents showed that Mr. Plank gave her “confidential financial information” about the company and “enlisted her help to refute concerns about slumping sales.”

A representative of Under Armour told the Journal, “As we’ve said, Mr. Plank has utilized outside advisors and that’s what these documents show. None of the information was used improperly.”

Ms. Ruhle did not comment on the Journal story. 

MSNBC did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.

The decision to spin off MSNBC from NBCUniversal and parent Comcast has led to questions about which hosts the new company will decide to keep. The co-founder of Breaker Media, Lachlan Cartwright, reported in April that there are looming questions at the network about which reporters and news personalities will stay or leave as the cable network decides whether it wants to double down on trying to be the home of the resistance to the Trump administration or take a different approach. 

Ms. Ruhle survived a purge in April, carried out by MSNBC’s new management, that sidelined or fired multiple hosts, including an anti-Trump firebrand, Joy Reid, who was terminated.