Closing out our live political news coverage for the evening. There are now 294 days until the 2020 presidential election. An updated summary of the news from today:

WARREN puts out statement on Sanders meeting and goes on record saying he said a woman could not win. Full statement: pic.twitter.com/R3Dww29m4e

“I thought a woman could win; he disagreed,” Warren said in the statement. “I have not interest in discussing this private meeting any further.”

After a long day of silence from the Warren campaign, Elizabeth Warren has gone on the record with a statement confirming the report that Bernie Sanders told her in a private meeting that a woman could not win the White House in 2020.

“The timing and scale of the attacks suggest that the Russians could be searching for potentially embarrassing material on the Bidens – the same kind of information that Mr Trump wanted from Ukraine when he pressed for an investigation of the Bidens and Burisma, setting off a chain of events that led to his impeachment,” the Times reports.

BREAKING: As the November impeachment hearings got underway, Russia's GRU hacked Burisma in what appears to be a repeat of 2016, when GRU hackers breached the DNC and then selectively leaked emails to hurt Clinton's candidacy. https://t.co/nQhhndnAV3 with @AllMattNYT

Russian hackers from a military intelligence unit targeted the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, that is at the center of the Trump’s impeachment, the New York Times reports , citing a Silicon Valley security firm that says it detected the hacking.

1) If this is true, it means we could be seeing Bolton testify 2) Feels like it could be expectation-setting from WH, which would then make it look like a "win" if GOP senators stay in line https://t.co/0oixUYgiLt

Read the full story from CBS News , as well as this caution from a Washington Post reporter:

Senior White House officials told CBS News they believe that at least four Republicans, and perhaps more, may join Democrats in voting to call witnesses in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

At least four Republicans may vote to call witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trial, White House officials tell CBS News

Save the date: The Department of Energy will release Ukraine-related documents, including Rick Perry's communications with high-level Ukraine officials, to American Oversight starting on January 28. https://t.co/FOyXuHAYDa

In a previous statement, Sanders himself accused members of Warren’s staff , who weren’t present for the one-on-one conversation, of “lying about what happened”.

The CNN report , describing what happened during a private 2018 meeting between the two candidates, cites four sources: “two people Warren spoke with directly soon after the encounter, and two people familiar with the meeting”.

MORE: I asked @fshakir if we need to hear directly from @eWarren as to what happened in the conversation. His response: “We need to hear from her directly, but I know what she would say that it is not true that it is a lie.” pic.twitter.com/Gf1LWtoxvX

Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager is calling the report that Sanders told Elizabeth Warren in 2018 that a woman couldn’t win the 2020 presidential race “a lie”. He also said that Warren herself “would say that it is not true, that it is a lie”.

Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, on Monday reported the US treasury department would lift its designation of China as a currency manipulator in a semi-annual report due to be released soon. The United States and China are due to sign a phase one trade deal this week.

“China is a currency manipulator – that is a fact,” Schumer said in a statement released by his office.

Senator Chuck Schumer on Monday blasted the Trump administration for what he described as its decision to “back down” from labeling China as a currency manipulator. Reuters reported.

“Mr President, what did the intelligence show about the threat to the four embassies?” a reporter asked.

As Trump boarded a plane to New Orleans, a journalist asked Trump about his previous claim to Fox News that Iran had “ probably ” been planning to attack four embassies across the Middle East, and that this had informed his decision to approve the assassination of the top Iranian general Qassem Suleimani. Trump’s defense secretary, Mark Esper, said yesterday that he had not seen specific evidence that was the case.

The poll comes the same day a Monmouth poll of Iowa Democratic voters also found Biden leading the primary field.

More polls! NEW Quinnipiac U national poll v. Dec: Biden: 25% ⬇️5 Sanders: 19% ⬆️3 Warren: 16% ⬇️1 Buttigieg: 8% ⬇️1 Bloomberg: 6% ⬇️1 Yang: 5% ⬆️2 Klobuchar: 4% ⬆️1 Everyone else is at or below 1%

The poll’s findings underscore Biden’s frontrunner status within the primary. Most polls have shown him leading the field in key states and nationally.

The Quinnipiac University poll released Monday afternoon found Biden leading the field with 25% support followed by Senator Bernie Sanders with 19% support. Senator Elizabeth Warren came in next with 16% support followed by former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg with 8% support.

Sanders co-chair denies campaign talking points were to trash Warren

The co-chair of Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign denied that a set of talking points distributed by the campaign to volunteers was an effort to “trash” Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Nina Turner, a former Ohio state legislator and the co-chair of the Sanders campaign, said in an interview with Hill.TV that the Sanders campaign “would never” trash Warren or any other candidate.

The comments on Monday come in response to increasing tension between the Sanders campaign and the Warren campaign over a set of talking points the Sanders campaign distributed to its volunteers that urged them to describe Warren’s supporters as “highly-educated, more affluent people” and argue to voters that Warren could not expand the electorate.

In response Warren said that Sanders was trying to “trash” her campaign. Warren said she was disappointed with the Sanders campaign when asked about the talking points during a gaggle with reporters over the weekend. Turner though denied that was the intention.

“I was really sad to see that because as Senator Warren laid out that Senator Sanders knows her — she knows him,” Turner said. “She knows that he would never do anything like that so when she says he sent out his volunteers, nothing could be further from the truth,” Turner said.

The back and forth between Sanders and Warren, who until the past few days avoided criticizing each other, comes just before the last Democratic primary debate before the Iowa caucuses.

Updated at 17.54 GMT