It appears to be an open secret in Washington that President Trump is Rudy Giuliani's last remaining fan.

Numerous Trump allies have been trying to get the president to rid himself of his attorney before he does too much damage, Politico reports, echoing an earlier report from The Wall Street Journal, in which a source said Trump was the only person in his administration who didn't mind the former New York City mayor's frequent and rambling TV appearances.

It's not just about those TV appearances anymore, though. Two of Giuliani's contacts who helped him try to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden's activities in Ukraine were arrested on campaign finance-related charges, and Giuliani himself may be under investigation for possibly breaking lobbying laws in light of allegations that he undermined the former American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch.

Trump said Friday he wasn't sure if Giuliani was still his lawyer, though he remained complimentary of him. Giuliani later confirmed that he was indeed still representing the president, perhaps to the chagrin of Trump's other confidants.

"Rudy needs to stop talking," a former Trump campaign official who remains close to the administration said. Another source said Giuliani is "massively hurting" Trump, and an outside Trump adviser said the lawyer needs to "focus on himself and not Ukraine."

If Trump does eventually turn on him? Well, one Republic suggested Giuliani might just keep doing his thing, anyway, Politico reports. Read more at Politico. Tim O'Donnell

House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Tuesday night said Democrats have made "dramatic progress" in answering questions surrounding President Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

They've learned more about the events that took place before and after the conversation, "thanks to the courageous testimony of State Department officials who have been put in an impossible situation by the administration, and that is urged not to comply with the law, urged not to comply with a lawful subpoena by the U.S. Congress," Schiff said. "They are doing their duty and people should make no mistake about that."



He singled out for praise Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, who testified before lawmakers last week, and criticized the State Department for missing a deadline to produce documents related to Ukraine. There is a "complete effort by the administration to stonewall," Schiff said. Catherine Garcia

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday evening decided to hold off on calling a full House vote to authorize a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump.

This doesn't mean the vote won't happen in the near future, Democratic aides told Politico, as Pelosi is keeping all of her options open. Pelosi shared the news with her caucus during a private meeting. Trump and his Republican allies are trying to paint the impeachment inquiry as illegitimate, but Democrats say a full House vote is unnecessary. "The only time a vote is required is if and when articles of impeachment come to the floor," Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) told Politico. "This is an effort by the president to distract from the shocking and serious allegations of misconduct."

Pelosi spoke to reporters on Tuesday night after the meeting, and said the impeachment inquiry is "not a game for us. This is deadly serious. We're here to find the truth, to uphold the Constitution of the United States." Catherine Garcia

Republican voters say they prefer more progressive tax plans, at least when the plans are anonymous, a new poll from a progressive think tank shows.

Data for Progress, whose goal is to "show how a progressive agenda can win nationwide," worked in tandem with YouGov Blue to conduct a survey which pitted the tax plans of President Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) against one another. Those polled were presented with a graph that showed prospective income tax rates for people of different incomes under each plan, but the candidates' names were nowhere to be seen.

Per the poll, Warren's plan — which would aggressively tax the wealthy at higher rates than lower-income people — was the most popular and considered the fairest overall, even among Republican voters, 35 percent of whom preferred Warren's compared to 29 percent who favored Trump's regressive tax rate.

Among Democrats, Sanders' and Warren's plans were effectively tied. Biden, meanwhile, appears to be lost in the wilderness on this one. YouGov conducted a survey of 1,024 U.S. voters online. No margin of error was reported. Read more at Data for Progress. Tim O'Donnell

Let's not forget that the record-breaking 12 candidates set to appear on the debate stage Tuesday night are somehow not even all of the people who are running for president. There is also, apparently, some guy named Wayne Messam, who is the mayor of Miramar, Florida.

You might be excused for not knowing Messam's name; he hasn't appeared on the debate stage quite yet. And, well, he is perhaps not doing the best job self-promoting, either; according to his Federal Election Commission filing on Tuesday, his campaign spent exactly $0 in the third quarter.

Even more surprising, though, is his fundraising haul. Between July and September, Messam reported raising just five dollars.

Take that number with a grain of salt. Adds The New York Times, "It is possible that the numbers Mr. Messam submitted are incorrect. That wouldn't be unprecedented; he submitted a corrected first-quarter report earlier this year after an accounting error led him to report raising nearly twice as much as he actually had." Jeva Lange

If the video depicting a fake President Trump massacring members of the media — which was condemned by the White House — wasn't too much to handle already, ProPublica and WNYC released more disturbing audio from the conference where the footage was originally shown.

While speaking at the pro-Trump conference in Miami, Florida, at the Trump National Doral Miami, Mark Burns, a pastor, told the crowd multiple times that "we've come to declare war." As he continued, he reportedly asked if anybody was "read to go to war for Donald J. Trump, this nation?" as the audience reportedly cheered him on.

Additionally, radio host Wayne Allyn Root reportedly boasted about a time in his childhood when, as one of the few white students at a predominantly black high school, he knocked one classmate unconscious and shattered another kid's teeth. "My buddies and I were high-fiving and laughing," Root reportedly said during his speech. "Man, it was funny."

Root reportedly went on to say that "you've got to be a natural-born killer" to win in politics. Listen to the audio clips at ProPublica. Tim O'Donnell

As part of a federal investigation into Rudy Giuliani, a grand jury has issued a subpoena for documents from former Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), a longtime friend who has also interacted with two Giuliani associates who were arrested last week, people with knowledge of the matter told The Wall Street Journal.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are reportedly looking into Giuliani's business dealings in Ukraine and his role in the removal of Marie Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine. They are asking Sessions to turn over documents related to both matters, as well as interactions with Giuliani and his associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were arrested last week for conspiracy and campaign finance violations.

Giuliani, President Trump's personal lawyer, is the primary focus of the subpoena, people familiar with the investigation said, and there is nothing pointing to Sessions being the target of the probe; Giuliani has denied any wrongdoing. A spokesperson for Sessions said he is cooperating and will start turning over documents. The Journal reported on Monday that federal prosecutors have looked at Giuliani's bank records and have been questioning witnesses since at least August. Catherine Garcia