Good Wednesday morning. I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to your Politico Playbook audio briefing presented by BP.

And I'm Jake Sherman. Here's what you need to know about the next eight days. First, the sequencing for next week. Democrats are planning to impeach Donald Trump first, perhaps Tuesday or Wednesday, and then move to government funding in USMCA. This way, impeachment would not be the last thing they would do before leaving town for Christmas. Again, if all goes well, Congress could be done by Friday night. About government funding, all sides at the moment are maintaining that they're trying to cobble together a deal to fund the entire government for the entire year. That seems like a tall task, so there's discussion at the moment about a two-month stop gap that would fund government until just before President's Day weekend in February.

The markup of the impeachment articles begins at 7 p.m. tonight. They're going to start the hearing,

give speeches, etc., and then recess until Thursday morning. One striking feature of impeachment so far is

this. All of the main players are playing the roles we expected. House Democrats came into power with a

significant distaste for Trump, but vowing not to impeach him. The moment they say has called them.

In reality, the majority of House Democrats come from districts eager to dump the president,

and a small minority of the party, 10%, represents districts where Trump stands a chance.

We feigned shock when House Republicans are standing pat behind Donald Trump, but when have we

seen them do anything else?

Republicans have been wiped out of everything besides deep red districts.

If they get a centimeter out of line with Trump, they risk his ire and the ire of his base.

The post was up with its latest Afghanistan paper's installment.

Strategy without a strategy. Looking at how President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama

had polar opposite plans to win the war in Afghanistan and how both were destined to fail.

John Brezni, Heather Kagle, and Kyle Cheney had a behind-the-scenes look at why Democrats

sidelined Mueller in the impeachment articles.

We have a couple stories in the Department of Liberal angst, one on how Speaker Nancy Pelosi

brokered a tentative deal with liberals on a drug pricing bill, and Birchis Everett, Heather Kagle,

and Chris Catalago have a story about how Dems are concerned that the USMCA trade deal

will help the president's re-election.

The Times has a piece up on President Trump and how he is targeting anti-Semitism

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