If you haven’t already I want to encourage you to read today’s Morning Memo and the personal note from David at the head of it. It’s only for David to share these things. But I confess I felt a sense of unexpected relief when I saw that he did. I don’t want to and am not at liberty to say any more. The best way I can convey it is that a lot of stuff has happened in this organization over the last two years, difficult stuff. These are things happening in individual people’s and families’ lives. But speaking just for myself, I have sometimes felt a gulf between us or at least me and our TPM community in the wake of these different events, much as you might feel some estrangement from family or friends if you’re dealing with things you can’t discuss with them.

I should add just generally that most of these challenges have ended up better than we or members of our team could have anticipated. I am so immensely grateful for that. I am so proud of and nourished by the resilience and solidarity of this whole crew, this tiny but close-knit battalion of newsers.

There were a lot of press reports that Jim Jordan had the momentum in the House GOP fight for the Speakership. But they held the caucus vote today and Steve Scalise won 113 to 99. Importantly, these caucus votes are secret ballots. So those reports might have been accurate as a measure of what members were telling reporters. But a secret ballot is another matter.

Normally, this would mean that Scalise will now become Speaker. But of course we’re not in the world of normal. This is the House GOP caucus. My understanding is that Jim Jordan still hasn’t officially responded to his defeat. I also hear there’s a move to push the floor vote up to this afternoon rather than waiting for tomorrow. Presumably that’s to get the vote done before anyone gets any ideas about making trouble.

We could have a new Speaker of the House by the end of the day.

On the margins of the unfolding Israel-Hamas war have been a series of reports that Egyptian intelligence gave the Israelis some kind of warning of an impending attack or eruption in Gaza. Those reports have been met by fierce denials from the Prime Minister’s office. Just where this whole question stood after the back and forth of the last 36 hours was unclear, at least to me. But this morning House Foreign Relations Chair Mike McCaul (R-TX) said this: “We know that Egypt had warned the Israelis three days prior that an event like this could happen…I don’t want to get too much in the classified but a warning was given. I think the question was at what level.”

News just broke that Benny Gantz and Benjamin Netanyahu have formed an emergency national unity government in Israel. This has been expected for the last day or so. What’s not clear yet is the precise details of that government. Gantz had demanded a war cabinet made up of Netanyahu and his Defense Minister joined to Gantz and his deputy, Gadi Eizenkot. Both of the latter two are former IDF Chiefs of Staff. That would essentially sidestep the entire existing cabinet structure and run the management of the war through those four men.

This new piece by Hunter and Josh is a reminder of what your subscriptions, what being a member of club TPM, accomplishes. George Santos was just indicted (a new set of felony indictments) for charging people’s credit cards for contributions they never intended to make. Just straight up fraud. TPM was the first to break that story way back in January. If you’re a member: you did this. If you’re not, join us today.

LecternGate Goes from Strength to Strength!

OnlyKevin Movement takes flight in the House!

More from PodiumLecternGate: It seems rather quaint at the moment. But I wanted to flag to your attention that the blogger/FOIAer/gadfly/lawyer, Matt Campbell, who has close to singlehandedly made the podiumlecterngate into the story it is, has now unearthed pretty incontrovertible documentary evidence of document tampering by the Office of the Governor in Arkansas. Specifically, a representative of the office tried to get a state employee to change document to match the Governor’s cover story.

I want to reiterate what I wrote two days ago in my first post about the current conflict in Israel. If you’re looking for information on the coordinated Hamas attacks in southern Israel I recommend this Twitter list of (mostly) English language news sources from Israel, if you’re on Twitter. The Times of Israel, the English language version of Haaretz and Ynet are also good. Obviously there are many good sources of information. This isn’t meant to be exhaustive. These are some of the first places I go when I’m looking for the latest information.

With a story like this we’re not going to break new information. I see our role as helping sift through the flurry of new details and the often-chaotic stream of information we’re seeing.

A few times I mentioned the WSJ article which reported a series of secret meetings in Beirut in which Iran and Hamas planned the attack on Israel and Iran authorized it. I noted that there was significant and credible pushback on the article, which appeared to rely on Hamas sources. Since then I’ve seen a pretty lopsided chorus of doubts about the report. The relevant governments seem skeptical, at least publicly. And most people with significant area expertise seem skeptical about the report itself as well as various details within it.

One issue that is increasingly coming into focus is the claim that Egyptian intelligence warned Israel, specifically warned Prime Minister Netanyahu, that something big and bad was coming from Gaza. Just what kind of warning we’re talking about, the timing, details has been fuzzy over the last 24 hours. But at least the claim is coming into focus. Ynet is reporting that ten days before the attack the Director of the General Intelligence Directorate of Egypt, Abbas Kamel, called Netanyahu and warned “something fierce will happen from Gaza”. Netanyahu, according to this report, reacted in a nonchalant fashion and said the IDF had its hands full with events in the West Bank.

Needless to say, this claim is going to loom over everything that is unfolding. The Prime Minister’s office has officially denied the report. But I suspect a huge amount will turn on the specifics of just what is being alleged and denied. Is the PM’s office denying any conversation took place? Are they disputing the specifics of the warning? Even the quote I printed above must be one handed from Arabic to Hebrew and then into English. So we shouldn’t get too focused on the words in that quote.

Item 1: The WSJ published a much discussed article describing the Hamas attacks as coordinated with and authorized by Iran in a series of meetings in Beirut. The article appears to have been sourced entirely to Hamas representatives/officials. I would suggest great caution about these claims. Just because Hamas officials tell the Journal something doesn’t mean it’s true. What’s more, lots of people who know the region and know Iran suggest a lot of caution. To be clear, the point isn’t that this couldn’t be true, or partly true. But it would be an error to treat it as fact based on this one report.