<em>The Atlantic</em> Politics Daily: What Comes Next

Rudy Giuliani’s still secure where he is, probably. Despite his central role in the impeachment probe, and despite the establishment GOP’s exasperation at his seeming omnipresence, the president’s personal lawyer has yet to receive a Trumpian cold shoulder:

[Republicans] also agree on something else: Giuliani isn’t going anywhere. According to another senior House GOP aide, “We’re so far beyond that at this point.”

Giuliani himself also seems to agree. He told me in a text message that Trump “knows that every one of the stories are false and defamatory and intended to remove me as a defense lawyer for him.”

Elaina Plott, one of our White House reporters, took the temperature on Giuliani’s future.

Is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on his way out? Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s late November impeachment-probe testimony pulled Pompeo fully into the Ukraine scandal:

Sondland claimed of Pompeo and many other top officials in his opening statement: “They knew what we were doing, and why.”

That question—why—continues to drive the impeachment hearings, and will continue to haunt Pompeo.

Here’s our national-security writer Kathy Gilsinan’s read on tensions at a boil in the state department.

3. The 2020 Democratic race hasn’t thinned out …  

… even as the field has somehow expanded lightly (Michael Bloomberg, Deval Patrick).

Only a few candidates have qualified for the sixth Democratic debates so far: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, and Amy Klobuchar.

Here are just two candidates with solid political credentials still struggling to make the cut:

Julian Castro didn’t make the cut for the November debate, and is dangling below the criteria for December’s debate. Will missing a second debate be a nail in the coffin of his campaign? The Obama administration alum has struggled to garner significant attention beyond his notable performance in the first Democratic debate in June.

Meanwhile, Cory Booker may have hit the 200,000 unique donor requirement set by the DNC, but as our campaign reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere noted, Booker 2020 just isn’t catching fire.

Who, if anyone, will drop out before the Iowa caucus? Refresh your memory on the full field with this guide.

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(CORBIS / GETTY / EVAN EL-AMIN / SHUTTERSTOCK / THE ATLANTIC)

Ibram X. Kendi, a contributing writer, on politics at the dinner table:

We should not be skipping family gatherings to dine with like-minded people, or in like-minded solitude. Nor should we be planning to avoid talk about politics. Nor should we gather with loved ones and bite our tongues as they regurgitate narratives of Biden’s electability, or regurgitate Trump’s talking points. Nor should we unleash our tongues on our loved ones as if they are Trump.

Read the rest of Ibram’s advice.

Jill and Joe Biden, shortly after they first met, with his two sons, Beau and Hunter. (Steven Goldblatt / Random House)