Totally bizarre day, and one of significance. While we still don't know anything more about either the whistleblower or the content of his/her complaint, President Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani acknowledged all the current allegations on TV today. Trump indeed withheld appropriated defense funds from Ukraine to get the newly elected leader to investigate a political enemy's son in order to help Trump win the 2020 election, although there is no evidence the son or his father did anything wrong (if there were, the American Department of Justice, run by Trump loyalists, would investigate). All that- the shocking abuse of power and the undermining of our national security by the president- is now openly acknowledged. So the question is no longer "Did he do it?" but is now "What are we going to do about it?"

While congresspeople conferred in private, over the course of the day, Trump became increasingly unhinged. He told reporters: that he would win a Nobel Prize for a lot of things except that the system was rigged, that we would be at war with North Korea if he had not won the 2016 election, he said he wanted people to hear the Ukraine phone call and then minutes later yelled that he had not said that (it was on tape), and claimed that if a Republican had done what Trump's opponent Joseph Biden had done he would "get the electric chair." (There is no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden.)

Then, this evening, Giuliani implicated the State Department in the scandal by saying its officials had asked him, Trump's personal lawyer, to undertake the mission to Ukraine in which he had pressured them to uncover corruption by the Bidens.

Whew.

But the day was not over. Two big things happened tonight.

At 9:00, seven freshmen Representatives, Democrats from swing districts, all veterans, published an op-ed in the Washington Post reminding readers that they had taken an oath to defend their country, and with that oath in mind, called for impeachment hearings. This call, from swing districts, is significant.

Then, at 10:40, the Washington Post broke the story that the Office of Management and Budget, under Trump's acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney (who wears a bunch of hats in this administration) had stopped the Ukraine payments funded by Congress to push back against Russian incursions. The article said that by mid-August, "lawmakers were acutely aware that OMB had assumed all decision-making authority from the Defense and State departments" and was acting according to Trump's wishes alone. This is a major leak from within the White House (and the timing of the whistleblower's complaint at right about the moment this was happening has led to some speculation about who it might be).

So what we have, just over the midnight line, is a beleaguered president who is melting down, White House staffers beginning to leak major scandals, and lawmakers from swing districts who have moved toward impeachment.

Just reporting the bare bones here because it has been a very long day and I am exhausted, but things feel different tonight. It feels like the walls around Trump are cracking.

We'll see. Tuesday will tell us which way the wind is blowing.