“Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, rivals for the affections of the Democratic Party’s left wing, are increasingly making careful but unmistakable efforts to distinguish themselves from each other as the primary heads toward its first vote in three months,” the Washington Post reports.

Asked during an Oval Office interview with the Washington Examiner if he is happy with the job Mick Mulvaney is doing for him, President Trump demurred.

Said Trump: “Happy? I don’t want to comment on it.”

The House Democrats unveiled a resolution Tuesday afternoon to set the parameters of the public phase of the impeachment inquiry, the Washington Post reports.

They also released a statement and fact sheet.

The House plans to vote to formalize it Thursday.

The Guardian: “Jeremy Corbyn has announced that Labour is ready to back a general election now that the EU27 has granted a three-month Brexit delay, making a pre-Christmas poll all but certain.”

“With the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National party preparing to support a one-line bill tabled by Boris Johnson’s government later on Tuesday, triggering an early poll, Corbyn said his party would also support it.”

“The White House script on the death of brutal terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was short. But with two words, President Trump turned the somber announcement into a vivid 40-minute news conference that included bravado, detailed descriptions of military operations, questionable statements and self-promotion,” the Washington Post reports.

“Any questions?”

“Trump eschewed the serious televised statement his predecessors might have offered. Obama, for example, said about 1,390 words when announcing the death of Osama bin Laden, and took no questions.”

“Trump, in contrast, uttered almost 8,000 words and took a dozen questions, offering an unfiltered and, at times, vivid account of the raid.”

Politico: “Attorneys for Rep. Katie Hill on Thursday threatened to bring legal action against a British tabloid for posting what it claims are nude photos of the freshman California Democrat. Hill’s legal team — Marc Elias and Rachael Jacobs of the firm Perkins Coie — also suggested Hill was defamed over allegations by the Daily Mail that she has a Nazi-inspired tattoo on her body.”

Politico “The first time Donald Trump ran for president, Karen Pence, the wife of his running mate, rarely hit the campaign trail to stump for the pair. Camera shy and appalled by Trump’s treatment of women, Mrs. Pence surfaced only to support her husband in his October 2016 vice presidential debate and to join him at rallies in the final weeks before the election.”

“But when Trump began asking friends this summer for their thoughts about Vice President Mike Pence, the second lady decided it was time to step up. Fearful that the president might boot Pence — who has long had his eye on the 2024 presidential race — from his reelection ticket, she became eager to assist the campaign as a loyal female surrogate.”

John Harris: “The first was the degree of critical focus on Sen. Elizabeth Warren, reflecting a calculation that she, rather than former Vice President Joe Biden, has the momentum in the race and is setting the agenda for the party. She took in the glare for the largest share of the three-hour debate without wilting, or receding for significant chunks of the evening (as she did in previous encounters) when the issues shifted away from terrain where she is most comfortable.”

“The second dynamic was an honest illumination of the party’s left-vs.-center debate. In past encounters, this conversation often was portrayed as a choice between ‘activists’ and ‘establishment,’ or between bold principles and expedient moderation.”

Jonathan Swan: “President Trump, while nervous about the historic stain of impeachment, is throwing everything he has into this fight: refusing all cooperation, running ads to profit politically, and torching every person who stands in opposition to him.”

“When it all boils down, Trump really only trusts his own instincts. And his instincts here are the same as they were with the Mueller investigation: Fight like hell.”

The strategy: “No nuance or apology — not a hint of it. Turn the leader of the investigation (in this case, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff) into a conservative media villain. Condemn Trump enemies in the most incendiary and exaggerated language possible (treason, traitors, coup, etc.).”

Chris Cillizza: “That last-minute decision by the State Department seems directly at odds with President Trump’s repeated insistence that his phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was ‘perfect’ and that he retained the ‘absolute right’ to ask foreign countries to investigate corruption.”

“If Trump — and, by extension, his State Department — are completely certain they were acting appropriately, why keep Sondland from testifying to that effect? If there is truly nothing to hide here and everything that Trump and his people did was ‘perfect,’ why not let Sondland tell that story?”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) told reporters that the State Department is withholding EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s personal device with relevant messages about the Trump administration’s interactions with the Ukrainian government, Axios reports.

Said Schiff: “Not only is he being deprived of his testimony today, but we’re also aware that the ambassador has text messages or emails on a personal device, which have been provided to the State Department — although we have requested those from the ambassador. And the State Department is withholding those messages as well.”

New York Times: “Mr. Trump has long believed that he is the best communicator in the White House, but as the presidential campaign picks up its pace and the prospect of his impeachment becomes more real, he seems to be its only empowered communicator, a one-man war room responding to developments almost hour by hour. And that is making many Republicans anxious.”

“For now, the White House has no organized response to impeachment, little guidance for surrogates to spread a consistent message even if it had developed one, and minimal coordination between the president’s legal advisers and his political ones. And West Wing aides are divided on everything from who is in charge to whether, after two years of the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, impeachment even poses a serious political threat to the president.”

President Trump personally contacted Boris Johnson to ask for help as he tried to discredit the Mueller investigation into possible connections between Russia and his 2016 election campaign, the Times of London reports.