But the energy secretary may not show up to his deposition.

According to CNN:

Department of Energy spokesperson Shaylyn Hynes said Perry will not participate in the closed-door deposition.

“The secretary will not partake in a secret star chamber inquisition where agency counsel is forbidden to be present,” Hynes said. “If the committee is interested in conducting a serious proceeding they are welcome to send for the secretary’s consideration an invitation to participate in an open hearing where the Department’s counsel can be present and the American people can witness.”

Energy Secretary Rick Perry is scheduled to testify on Wednesday, according to reports.

Perry resigned in October amid the Ukraine scandal. He has said that he urged Donald Trump to make the phone call at the center of the impeachment inquiry to offer Ukraine “an alternative to Russian gas” — saying the whole affair had nothing to do with Joe Biden or his son Hunter.

Maybe Chad Wolf isn’t DHS acting secretary after all...

According to the White House Pool reporters, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson contradicted Donald Trump’s assertion that Chad Wolf is “right now acting” secretary.

Kevin McAleenan remains the acting secretary and Wolf is the acting undersecretary for policy, the spokesperson reportedly said.

Stay tuned as we attempt to clarify.

National Security official testified that he was asked to keep mum

A White House lawyer instructed national security official Alexander Vindman not to discuss he concerns over Donald Trump’s conversations with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy with anyone outside the White House, the Washington Post reports:

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified that he received this instruction from John Eisenberg, the top legal adviser for the National Security Council, after White House lawyers learned July 29 that a CIA employee had anonymously raised concerns about the Trump phone call, the sources said.

The directive from Eisenberg adds to an expanding list of moves by senior White House officials to contain, if not conceal, possible evidence of Trump’s attempt to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to provide information that could be damaging to former vice president Joe Biden.

2020 candidates thank Beto O’Rourke for his gun control advocacy

After a gunman opened fire at a Walmart in O’Rourke’s hometown of El Paso, Texas, and killed 22 people, the former congressman redoubled his commitment to ending gun violence.

During his campaign, O’Rourke found himself at odds with some of his running mates. Fellow Texan Julián Castro criticized O’Rouke’s immigration policies, sparring with him during a June debate. “I think you should do your homework on this issue,” Castro told O’Rourke.

O’Rourke has not endorsed any of the other candidates. “I can tell you firsthand from having the chance to know the candidates, we will be well served by any one of them, and I’m going to be proud to support whoever that nominee is,” he said in a statement.

Wolf will be the fifth person to lead the department since Donald Trump took office. Trump announced recently that acting DHS secretary Kevin McAleenan was leaving his post.

This news was first reported by Politico, and confirmed by NPR. Trump confirmed that Wolf could take the position. According to White House pool reporters, the president said: “Well he’s right now acting and we’ll see what happens. We have great people in there.”

Per NPR:

Wolf would seem to be a less controversial choice than others, in that he has not publicly espoused the hard-line views on immigration that the acting head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli has, for instance.

Some advocates for immigration restrictions have raised concerns about Wolf’s prior work as a lobbyist on H-1B and other employment visas - programs that Trump has opposed. Wolf would become the latest person in charge at DHS “who is not completely on board” with Trump’s immigration agenda, said RJ Hauman, head of government relations at the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

“If officially named, Wolf must recuse himself from work on all guest worker related issues, not just H-1B and L-1,” Hauman said.

Beto O’Rourke was once a front runner in the Democratic primaries, who raised huge amounts of money from small donors across the country.

When he ran for US senator, he earned an endorsement of Barack Obama and energized the democratic base before he narrowly lost to incumbent Ted Cruz in the Republican stronghold of Texas. But O’Rourke is not expected to run for the Senate again. It’s unclear what his political future holds.

Following in the footsteps of Joan Didion, and Meghan Daum and Luc Sante – Donald Trump has penned his own version of the “Goodbye New York” essay after announcing yesterday that he had changed his primary residence from Manhattan to Mar-a-lago.

“I love New York, but New York can never be great again,” he begins. Like so many bigly figures in the literary world, Trump has written about that bittersweet feeling of leaving the iconic city.

For Trump, the decision to leave stems, he writes, from his disappointment with the “current leadership of Governor Andrew Cuomo (the brother of Fredo), or Mayor Bill DeBlasio”.

Moreover, Trump continued, “Upstate is being allowed to die as other nearby states frack & drill for Gold (oil) while reducing taxes & creating jobs by the thousands.” He lamented, “NYC is getting dirty & unsafe again.”

Echoing Didion, who described the city as “an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself”, Trump concluded that he wants this “wonerful (sic) City and State to flourish and thrive.”

“I Love New York!” Trump said.

“I am announcing that my service to the country will not be as a candidate or as the nominee,” he said in a statement.

The former Texas congressman has suffered low polling numbers and his campaign has been under financial strain. “Though it is difficult to accept, it is clear to me now that this campaign does not have the means to move forward successfully,” O’Rourke said.

He had not met the thresholds for participating in the upcoming debates in November and December.

That’s it from me this week. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

• Joe Biden attacked Elizabeth Warren following the release of her $20.5tn plan to fund Medicare for all, claiming the Massachusetts senator was “making it up” on the cost estimate of the proposal.
• A new poll showed Biden slipping to fourth in Iowa – narrowly trailing Warren, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg in the first caucus state.
• Nancy Pelosi predicted public impeachment hearings would begin this month, but the House speaker emphasized that any case against Trump would have to be “ironclad”.
• Lt Col Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the national security council, reportedly told impeachment investigators that he was instructed by a White House lawyer not to discuss Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president.

Maanvi will have plenty more on the news of the day, so stay tuned. Some of my Guardian colleagues will be anchoring the blog next week as I travel to Iowa to report on the Democratic presidential primary, so enjoy their coverage – and have a wonderful weekend!

Joe Biden has now personally weighed in on the release of Elizabeth Warren’s $20.5 trillion plan to fund her Medicare for all proposal, and his response boils down to: you’re full of it.

“She’s making it up,” Biden told PBS NewsHour. “Nobody thinks it’s $20 trillion. It’s between $30 and $40 trillion.”

The former vice president once again offered Bernie Sanders the backhanded compliment of recognizing that Medicare for all would require tax increases on the middle class.

“Look, we don’t have to go that route,” Biden added. “All we have to do is go back, restore Obamacare, provide a public option.”

Biden noted that his plan could be implemented immediately if passed, while Warren and Sanders have proposed transitional periods to shift to a single-payer system.