Good Thursday morning, I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing.

Stay tuned after the show for a message from Energy for Progress. And I'm Anna Palmer. Here's what's

clear if you talk to House and Senate Democratic Insiders. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on the brink of ending

her hold of the impeachment articles. The House is going to send them to the Senate in the near future,

which will trigger the trial, most likely in the next few weeks. Pelosi has not given any hints of exactly

when she might start this process. The left was clamoring for Pelosi to hold the articles in an

attempt to get Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to agree to witnesses. He didn't, and most people

realized he never would.

Pelosi allies, though, say they forced a week's long discussion on impeachment trial witnesses

and whether McConnell should be forced to guarantee them. Here's what a senior Democratic

aide told us. The hold was clearly successful. We didn't get everything we wanted. But a huge

part of what we wanted was a national spotlight on the fairness of the trial. There's no question we achieved that. Democrats were completely unified

until Wednesday when Senate Democrats crumbled in a stunning story by Burgess Everett and Heather

Kagle. Consider Pelosi's 232 Democrats stuck together for a few weeks and Senate Democrats

support crumbled within days. Here's where Pelosi can make news.

The speaker has a 1045 a.m. news conference.

The House is in today and tomorrow, and she will be on ABC's This Week Sunday.

CNN is reporting that McConnell huddled yesterday with Trump at the White House about the upcoming

impeachment trial.

And on the trade front, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that China is sending its chief

trade negotiator to the U.S. to sign phase one of the trade deal.

Here's what Megan Markle and Harry's decision means for actually just kidding.

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