Intel is dealing with a major chip bug, but full impact unclear

That said, there is a lot we still don't know. Here are three big questions:

• How much will it cost to fix?It's clear that the major operating system vendors, including Microsoft and the Linux community as well as cloud providers like Amazon, have spent significant money to rearchitect their operations. PC makers, cloud service providers and others will also have to educate their consumers on the impact. Plus, Intel could be looking at lawsuits from those who say their machines performance has been degraded.
• How will it affect computer performance?This has been the subject of much speculation in recent days, with some seeing a performance hit of as much as 30%, while others saying the performance impact will be much smaller in nearly all cases.
• When will the companies break their silence?There is clearly a benefit to a coordinated response, but at this point there are lots of questions swirling, so hopefully answers are coming sooner rather than later. (Update: Sources tell Axios the research behind this flaw will come out this afternoon, with comments from the companies affected expected to follow.)

Intel, Microsoft and Apple have declined to comment. Google and Amazon representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The state of play:

• Trump said on the South Lawn yesterday: "China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine."
• As Axios first reported, the White House plans to send Pelosi a letter as soon as today that dares her to hold a vote on an impeachment inquiry rather than simply declaring it. Trump wants to force votes by vulnerable House Dems.

⚡ Some of the day's most explosive news broke at 10:30 p.m.:

• Three House committees released dozens of texts between U.S. diplomats in Ukraine discussing how to handle a response to Trump’s demands that the country launch an investigation into Joe Biden’s family.
• In one text exchange, former Ukrainian envoy Kurt Volker and EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland discussed a draft statement in which the Ukraine government would announce an investigation into the 2016 U.S. election and into a company whose board Biden’s son served on. (AP)

🎵 And now there's Whistleblower II ... WashPost front page: An IRS official "filed a whistleblower complaint reporting that he was told that at least one Treasury Department political appointee attempted to improperly interfere with the annual audit of the president’s or vice president’s tax returns."

Go deeper: Trump's Senate red wall

• So if Mitt Romney or Ben Sasse feel like voting to convict, they can and it wouldn’t make a difference.
• The red wall doesn’t include Susan Collins or Cory Gardner, the two Republican senators from states that voted for Hillary Clinton (Maine and Colorado). Both are up for re-election next year.
• They could vote to convict too, and it still wouldn’t matter.

Remember that impeachment, which only takes a majority vote in the House, doesn’t end Trump’s presidency. That only happens if two thirds of the Senate votes to convict and remove him — 67 senators if they all show up.

The catch: The wall gets weaker if you factor in Trump’s approval ratings. They’re negative in some of the states he won in 2016.

• But even if all of those senators jumped ship — which is a stretch — he'd still have more than enough votes to block conviction. That would only change if he started to lose senators from states where he's still popular, too.

By the numbers:

• 36 Republican senators represent Trump states where he’s still popular. 15 of them are up for re-election.
• 15 Republican senators represent Trump states where his approval ratings are underwater, but only 5 of them are up for re-election.
• Trump could lose 17 senators from his red wall — or 19 Republicans if Collins and Gardner were in the mix — and still stay in office.

The bottom line: Trump believes the combination of right-wing media backing + GOP senators' fear of crossing Trump voters will save him.

• Right now, there are few noticeable cracks in this wall.

Editor’s note: This post has been corrected to show that Martha McSally is up for election to hold on to her seat in 2020.