What happened today

Impeachment investigators took a break from interviewing new witnesses as the House honored the late Representative Elijah Cummings, who became the first African-American elected official to lie in state in the Capitol.

Senate Republicans introduced a resolution condemning the impeachment investigation. The resolution accused Democrats in the House of conducting an unfair, secret inquiry designed to embarrass President Trump without giving him the ability to defend himself.

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What does the president really want?

Mr. Trump’s hesitance to create an official arm of the White House to deal with impeachment-related material, like President Bill Clinton did, has caused some tension in the West Wing. I asked Annie Karni, who covers the White House, about what Mr. Trump and his advisers think they need.

How has Mr. Trump been talking about staffing for impeachment?

He has asked people around him who’s “running” impeachment, and advisers keep pointing at each other. Mick Mulvaney, for instance, has pointed to Jared Kushner. In reality, while Mr. Kushner has spent time on this, he isn’t the point person on it. There isn’t any kind of consensus.

What have you heard about where the White House is on the idea of the “war room”?

They still hate the term, but they know they need someone to go on TV. They wanted to hire Trey Gowdy, a former congressman, as a lawyer-spokesman of sorts, but that fell apart. Now they’re floating other names. One is Jeff Roe, a former Ted Cruz strategist, whose name has been mentioned over the years for many senior White House and campaign jobs that, for whatever reason, never materialized. There is increasing concern that they are losing this battle, that the facts are against them, that it’s getting worse by the witness.

What really scares the White House about the impeachment investigation right now?

At a Senate Republican lunch last week, Lindsey Graham tried to propose a letter to Nancy Pelosi saying that the House was wasting its time because the Senate wouldn’t convict the president, and there was pushback from Republicans. To many people around Mr. Trump, that was scary. It signaled that people who haven’t been asked — senators such as Richard Shelby or others — could actually break with him. Republican support might be softer than they think it should be.