Donald Trump’s tumultuous day began with the release of a memo describing a phone call which could end his presidency, and ended with a weary rambling speech characterised by boasts, false claims and self pity.
If the president thought releasing the partial transcript would silence his critics, as he seemed to hope, he could not have been more wrong.
While his supporters claimed the memo exonerated him, his opponents insisted that it was even more damning than they had feared.
The call showed him asking his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Joe Biden, who could face Mr Trump in next year’s presidential election, immediately after discussing the military aid Kiev needs to protect itself against a Russian-backed insurgency.
They also talked disparagingly about the former US ambassador to Ukraine who was recalled after apparently falling foul of the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Mr Trump apparently told the Ukrainian president: “Well, she’s going to go through some things.”
After appearing at an awkward media conference with the Ukrainian president himself on the edges of the UN general assembly, Mr Trump addressed the press himself.
In a low-energy performance, he insisted that the accusations against him were a Democrat “hoax” timed to embarrass him in front of the world’s leaders, boasted about his accomplishments, accused Mr Biden and his son of being corrupt and assured a Venezuelan journalist that he was watching developments in her country closely.
Updates below...
Hello and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.
It is going to be a busy day. After months of resistance, Nancy Pelosi has finally come out in favour of an impeachment investigation into Donald Trump, setting off an angry and erratic stream of tweets from the president.
To recap on what happened overnight…
Mr Trump announced he would release the transcript of his call with Ukraine in an attempt to prove he did not threaten the country’s president to investigate his main 2020 rival Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, the whistleblower who reported the call apparently wants to testify before Congress.
Meanwhile, the whistleblower who reported the call apparently wants to testify before Congress.
The president has also put out a new set of Facebook ads to create an "impeachment defence task force", according to journalist Judd Legum.
The adverts ask Mr Trump's supporters to defend "AMERICAN GREATNESS" by donating money to his campaign.
One of the big questions for Democrats today is this – do Americans support an impeachment investigation?
The good news for Ms Pelosi is they do, according to YouGov US, if Mr Trump suspended military aid to Ukraine in order to incentivise an investigation into Mr Biden and his son.
In that scenario, more than half (55 per cent) of Americans would back impeachment.
However, the president denies those allegations and it is not clear at this point if Democrats will be able to prove them.
However, the president denies those allegations and it is not clear at this point if Democrats will be able to prove them.
Rudy Giuliani, Mr Trump’s lawyer, had an extraordinary interview on Fox News last night in which he showed Laura Ingraham a phone that he claimed proves he was sent by the State Department to Ukraine.
Mr Giuliani has argued that he only spoke to Ukrainian officials because the State Department asked him to.
The outburst appears to be a warning to Trump administration officials who may want to blame him for the scandal.
Mr Giuliani also got into a very heated argument with another guest on Ms Ingraham’s show later in the evening.
Here are some fiery tweets from Anthony Scaramucci, the president’s former press secretary.
Mr Scaramucci has become one of Mr Trump’s most vocal critics since leaving the White House after a week-long stint as the director of communications.
He has been saying that the president’s days are numbered for a while now and last night, he claimed Mr Trump was “done”.
Mr Trump has tried to turn attention onto the transcript of his call with Ukraine’s president but the whistleblower complaint may be more important for the impeachment inquiry.
Last night, the Senate unanimously passed a nonbinding resolution calling for the complaint to be released to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
As legal analyst Barb McQuade noted, the complaint could provide context to the phone call and give a better idea of the motives behind Mr Trump’s decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine.
This is how the leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidates reacted to the opening of a formal impeachment investigation:
Global stocks fell overnight after the announcement of an impeachment inquiry into Mr Trump.
AP reports:
“Germany's DAX sank 0.7 per cent to 12,224.29 and the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.9 per cent to 5,578.02.
"Britain's FTSE 100 lost 0.6 per cent to 7,249.54.
“Wall Street was also set for losses, with the future contracts for the Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 down 0.2 per cent.”
How have Republicans reacted to the Democrats' push for impeachment?
The official Republican National Committee account and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, have followed Mr Trump’s lead by portraying impeachment as a distraction by Democrats.
Meanwhile, Ronna McDaniel, the RNC’s chairwoman, has called on Mr Biden to release transcripts of his calls with Ukrainian and Chinese leaders while he was vice president.
Although Mr Trump’s relationship with Ukraine has attracted attention this month, this story has been rumbling on for a while now.
Back in May this year, the president said it would be “appropriate” to talk to the attorney general about opening an investigation into Mr Biden.
However, as our defence and security editor Kim Sengupta explained at the time, the evidence for an investigation was weak.
Here’s something to look out for today – Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky and Mr Trump are expected to meet face to face for the first time at the UN General Assembly later.
Mr Zelensky has avoided commenting on the controversy from the call so far and said on Tuesday that he expects a “very warm” meeting with the president.
A senior White House official has told Axios reporters that Mr Trump will congratulate Mr Zelensky on his election win and his “energy and success” on anti-corruption reform.
Volodymyr Zelensky has finally commented on his phone call with Mr Trump.
Reuters has reported that the Ukrainian president joked to journalists in New York that only his six-year-old son could put pressure on him, in reference to the allegations that Mr Trump threatened the leader.
"Nobody can put pressure on me because I am the president of an independent state," Mr Zelensky said.
"The only one person by the way who can put pressure on me ... is my son, who is six years old."
Here's a reminder that Mr Trump’s problems extend beyond Ukraine...
Federal prosecutors have joined Mr Trump in asking a federal judge in New York to temporarily block a subpoena seeking the president’s tax returns, AP reports.
The prosecutors said Mr Trump has raised “weighty constitutional issues” in trying to stop the subpoena and they want to review them before deciding whether to join the legal battle.
"To the extent that enforcement of the subpoena may adversely affect federal interests of constitutional dimension, those effects could not be redressed after the fact," the prosecutors said.
They are asking for a "short stay of the subpoena's enforcement."
If you are unsure about how Congress could impeach Mr Trump, this infographic explains the process for removing a president.
One reason why Mr Trump has focused on attacking Joe Biden is because it has been widely-assumed that the former vice president will be his opponent in the 2020 election.
However, that is not a done deal.
Although Mr Biden is the clear front-runner in the Democratic primary, his lead is much less commanding than it was at the start of the race.
Politico’s Marc Caputo has some polling numbers that illustrate the problem.
In the states of New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina and Florida, voters have been moving away from Mr Biden.
The former VP has lost 18 percentage points in both New Hampshire and South Carolina since May.
And in Florida, he has fallen by 15 percentage points.
Of course, polls are not always accurate and the Democratic race has a long way to go.
The general trend is clear though – Biden is still in the lead but his nomination is not certain at all.
China has rejected Mr Trump's criticism of the country’s trade policy following the president’s speech at the UN yesterday, AP reports.
Geng Shuang, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, called on the Trump administration to “meet China halfway” in settling trade disputes and “expand cooperation on the basis of mutual benefit”.
He added that he hoped Washington would “listen to developing countries' calls for rapid development, opposition to bullying and suppression and aspirations for peace and stability”.
This is an important point about the Ukraine call transcript – Richard N Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, has noted that we are unlikely to see a literal transcript of Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky’s conversation.
Instead, he said we will probably see a memo listing the main points of the conversation.
That may be why Mr Trump is keen to direct attention towards the transcript and why Democrats are more interested in getting hold of the whistleblower’s complaint.
Elizabeth Warren is leading Joe Biden for the first time in the new Quinnipiac University national poll.
Mr Biden has dropped 7 percentage points since the last poll in August, while Ms Warren has gained 8 percentage points.
The survey was conducted from 19-23 September so Mr Trump’s attacks on the former vice president could have played a role in the result.
Quinnipiac is thought to be one of the most accurate pollster in US politics, according to polling website FiveThirtyEight.
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