Just moments ago news broke that Steve Scalise had withdrawn his bid to be Speaker of the House. This is a genuinely stunning development, even though I semi-predicted it earlier today. I said it half in jest. But we live in an age when half-jokes often come to pass rapidly.

I had a conversation this evening that allowed me to clarify some of my own thinking about these developments. After Scalise won the caucus Speakership vote you had a slow trickle of members saying “I’m still for Jim Jordan.” Then later you had news reports asking, “Can Steve Scalise get to 217?”

There’s a category, conceptual breakdown here that is kind of hiding in plain view. What do these members mean they’re still for Jim Jordan? He lost. It’s over. Scalise is the Republican Speaker candidate. End of story.

Haaretz just published a story adding to the warning question. It’s actually different. This article details what is described as a critical mass of what we would call “chatter” the night before the attacks. There were phone consultations at the highest levels of the army and intelligence services in southern Israel. But they decided that the signals they were picking up weren’t clear enough to raise an alert. By the next morning the attacks had already begun. This is different from the purported warnings from Egypt we’ve discussed. But it’s part of an emerging picture. It’s not clear yet whether it adds to those earlier stories or is simply, as often happens, a rush of ambiguous intelligence, just before an attack. I tried to give this a very basic summary because the piece is paywalled.

It would appear that Steve Scalise is recapitulating Kevin McCarthy’s nine-month out-of-control rollercoaster ride of a speakership in 24 hours. After a brief shining couple hours yesterday afternoon when it seemed like his speakership might actually become a thing, overnight we’ve seen a steady stream of House Republicans announcing either that they will not vote for Scalise or are at least not ready to vote for Scalise. This morning, deposed Speaker Kevin McCarthy stepped forward to express “concern” over his erstwhile frenemy-sorta ally’s travails. And by “concern” I mean, barely concealed gloating.

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss Steve Scalise winning the speaker nomination and the many, many obstacles still to come.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

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.