As former Vice President Joe Biden defends his comments about working with segregationist senators, some within his campaign are leaking their disapproval to the media.

Biden has been taking fire after touting at a Tuesday event his past ability to work with segregationist senators with whom he disagreed like James Eastland and Herman Talmadge, nostalgically recalling a time when "at least there was some civility" and when "we got things done." This drew criticism from some of Biden's Democratic opponents including Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who called on him to apologize. But Biden has defended himself, pushing back and saying Booker is the one who should apologize.

Politico reports that Biden had been advised against talking about segregationists in this way, though, with one source saying it's been "a point of contention" but "there's only so much we can do. This is his decision."

Similarly, The Washington Post reports that some within Biden's campaign "warned him against mentioning" in public his relationship with Eastland, with aides saying "they had urged Biden to find a less toxic example" and one adviser telling the Post, "it might move him to pick a different senator." This source added, "he's not someone you can go to and just say, ‘You’ve been doing this x number of years and you can’t do this anymore.'"

A source close to Biden also told CNN, "He needs to use a new, less problematic example."

Pundits on Thursday took note of these surprising leaks coming out of the Biden campaign, with Axios' Jonathan Swan writing that it's "early in the season for negative leaks," while The New York Times' Maggie Haberman observed, "this feels like spring 2016-level Trump campaign leaks." Brendan Morrow

Democratic presidential contenders will face off for the fifth time on Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET in a debate co-hosted by MSNBC and The Washington Post. The primary debate's four woman moderators will question a stage of 10 candidates that lacks two noteworthy contenders from earlier events, and comes just 100 days before the first primary contest in Iowa.

Wednesday night's stage will feature former Vice President Joe Biden; Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.); South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii); Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.); Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.); Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); billionaire Tom Steyer; Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.); and entrepreneur Andrew Yang. That's the same lineup as October minus former Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who has since dropped out of the race, and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, who failed to qualify.

Except Buttigieg to be a major focus in this debate, as he's surprisingly risen to top recent primary polls in Iowa but failed to replicate that performance among black voters in the early primary state of South Carolina. Meanwhile, Biden's post-debate email mistakenly sent earlier in the night suggests he'll be focusing his attacks on Warren.

You can find the debate on both MSNBC's and the Post's websites starting at 9 p.m. ET. Kathryn Krawczyk

When his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee started to run long, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland was worried he might miss his Wednesday night flight to Brussels, but he made it to the airport with enough time to get on the plane, put his luggage in the wrong place, and then make a wry observation about his life.

Fellow passenger Karen-Marie Hyland told CNN she watched as Sondland, who only hours earlier gave bombshell testimony implicating President Trump in a quid pro quo with Ukraine, put his carry-on bag in the wrong overhead compartment. Realizing his mistake, Sondland said, "My whole day has been like this."

Hyland also snapped a picture of the incident, since the public now knows if you deal with any member of the Trump administration, you need to make sure you have receipts. Catherine Garcia

GOP Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) just blew his attempt to brush off the impeachment hearings' latest bombshell.

In the second of Wednesday's hearings, Defense Department official Laura Cooper revised her previous closed-door testimony to say Ukrainian officials noticed their U.S. security aid was held up months earlier than she previously said. Ratcliffe then tried to lead Cooper into saying that was no big deal, but she didn't give in to his loaded question.

Cooper recently learned Ukraine had inquired about withheld U.S. security aid as early as July 25, she said Wednesday in a revision from her earlier testimony. That's the same day President Trump asked Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens and the 2016 election — an alleged quid pro quo. Republicans have tried brush off that alleged exchange, saying a quid pro quo couldn't have happened if Ukraine didn't know the aid was being held up.

Cooper's statement bucked that notion, so when Ratcliffe got a chance to question her, asked a series of questions in which he tried to get Cooper to claim Ukraine's inquiries about the aid were no big deal. The inquiries from Ukraine about the aid asked about the "assistance," not necessarily the "hold," Ratcliffe asked. "Not necessarily," Cooper agreed after a pause, mirroring his statements as he continued. But when Ratcliffe tried to tie it all together and say it's "not unusual" for countries to ask about aid, Cooper used her "experience with the Ukrainians" to say that's just not the case. Watch that moment below. Kathryn Krawczyk

A lawyer for Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman sent a letter to Fox News on Wednesday, requesting that the network either retract or correct a "deeply flawed and erroneous" segment that aired during the Oct. 28 episode of The Ingraham Angle.

Vindman is the National Security Council's Ukraine expert, and the segment aired prior to his closed-door testimony as part of the House impeachment inquiry. Host Laura Ingraham said it was "kind of an interesting angle" that Vindman "is advising Ukraine, while working inside the White House, apparently against the president's interest, and usually, they spoke in English." Yoo replied, "I found that astounding. Some people might call that espionage."

In his letter, lawyer David Pressman wrote that Vindman "had never in his 20-year career of service to his country been accused of having dual loyalties or committing espionage," which is a felony punishable by death. This falsehood was repeated by others, Pressman said, and Vindman, a Purple Heart recipient who served in Iraq, and his family "have been forced to examine options, including potentially moving onto a military base, in order to ensure their physical security in the face of threats rooted in the falsehood that Fox News originated."

In a statement, Fox News said that "as a guest on Fox News, John Yoo was responsible for his own statements, and he has subsequently done interviews to clarify what he meant." Yoo told The New York Times in an email that he "didn't say that Lt. Col. was a spy or that he had committed espionage. I had no reason to question that he was doing his duty as an officer. But I think the Ukrainians are engaged in espionage against us." That argument, Pressman said, is "as legally irrelevant as it is factually incredible." Catherine Garcia

Impeachment testimony changes are turning out to be game changers.

In the second of Wednesday's back-to-back impeachment hearings, Defense Department official Laura Cooper had something to revise from her closed-door testimony right off the bat. While Cooper originally testified Ukrainian officials started asking about withheld security aid on Sept. 5, she said Wednesday she's since heard from aides that Ukrainians had inquired months earlier.

The withholding of aid to Ukraine is a major part of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump. It's one half of the quid pro quo Trump has denied, allegedly withheld by the Trump administration until the Ukrainian government agreed to announce an investigation into the Bidens. Several officials have testified the aid was held up for this reason, but one major point made by Republicans has been that the aid was eventually released, and that the Ukrainians didn't even know it was missing until after Trump's infamous July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky where he requested the Biden investigation.

Cooper's testimony undercuts that narrative. She said Wednesday she'd since seen emails provided by staffers showing Ukrainian officials asked about the aid on July 25, the day of the call where Trump asked Zelensky to "do me a favor." If that's true, it would be much harder to claim the Ukrainians didn't feel pressured by Trump's request. Kathryn Krawczyk

At least one person is happy about everything that's going on in Washington, D.C.

As everything that went down between President Trump and Ukraine comes to the surface, Russian President Vladimir Putin is literally saying "thank God" that eyes aren't on him anymore. "No one is accusing us of interfering in the U.S. elections anymore," he said at a Wednesday economic forum in Moscow, per NBC News. "Now they're accusing Ukraine."

Intelligence officials have concluded Russia meddled in the 2016 election and will try to do so again, but Trump has ignored that and instead pushed the idea that Ukraine is somehow even more to blame. He explicitly told Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky that he'd like to see Ukraine investigate the 2016 election and baselessly claimed the country has a physical server holding the hacked Democratic National Committee emails. These unfounded claims have led to the ongoing impeachment inquiry into Trump and apparently left Putin thrilled that he's out of the conversation.

Just because Russia is out of the spotlight doesn't mean the country isn't still attempting to interfere in the 2020 presidential elections. Special Counsel Robert Mueller relayed a warning about Russian election interference during his congressional hearing back in April, saying it was likely happening as he testified. Putin himself seemingly joked last month that he's going to get meddling soon, though if we're being honest, that's probably not a joke. Kathryn Krawczyk