Good Friday morning. I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to your Politico Playbook audio briefing. Stay tuned

after the show for a message from the Association of American Railroads. And I'm Jake Sherman.

Here's what we could say definitively. Donald Trump is bending the machinations of the United

States government toward taking down Joe Biden. Senate and House Republicans are helping him by

sticking by his side.

That's not an opinion anymore.

That's fact.

He's forcing allies, the United Kingdom, Australia, Ukraine, to investigate the origins of the

Mueller probe.

The only difference of opinion now is Republicans say there's nothing to see here.

It's just Trump trying to root out corruption.

And Democrats say it's evidence that the president

is deeply unfit for office and deserves to be impeached. The evidence, a number of stories

dropped Thursday that confirmed this thesis. Wall Street Journal is reporting that the president

ordered the removal of the Ukraine ambassador after months of complaints from allies, including

Rudy Giuliani.

And The New York Times is up with a piece that two of the president's top envoys to Ukraine drafted a statement that would have committed Ukraine to investigating his political rivals.

And NBC has a story with this headline.

U.S. ambassadors pushed Ukraine to investigate as condition for White House visit, text show.

And this also looks quite bad.

CNN is reporting that Trump raised Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren's political prospects in a call with Chinese President Xi.

Also wild, in that call, Trump also told the Chinese president he would remain quiet on hong kong

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