Presented by Business Roundtable.

Hey, good morning. I'm Playbook co-author Rachel Bade. It's Tuesday, October 17th.

Capitol Hill is on the cusp of a Freedom Caucus takeover of the Speaker's gavel this morning.

But first, some news from last night. President Joe Biden will be heading to Tel Aviv today to meet with

Israeli prayer minister Benjamin Netanyahu following Hamas's deadly terrorist attack on the Jewish nation.

The rare wartime visit comes as Israel is engaged in a counteroffensive and that ground invasion

will actually not stop as Biden visits Israel. That's according to National Security

Council spokesman John Kirby, who briefed reporters last night. Kirby did reiterate that Biden wouldn't

be going if his safety wasn't guaranteed. This trip isn't too surprising given Biden's move to

reaffirm the U.S. support of Israel. He's also expected to discuss how the U.S. can help Israel defend itself, as well as talk about how they can conduct their counterattack in a way that minimizes civilian casualties in Gaza.

And now back to Capitol Hill.

Yesterday, we have to say the cascade of caving was truly something to behold. It all started

with House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, who frankly shocked Capitol Hill reporters like

myself and even his own colleagues when he suddenly announced that he would support Jim Jordan.

Now, as far as we knew, the Alabama Republican was actually part of the detractors who said

that they would not back Jordan as recently as last week.

And we had sort of expected him to join with other defense hawks and appropriators to form

this firewall to keep Jordan from the gavel.

And then Jordan flipped an even bigger fish yesterday morning.

Anne Wagner, who just last week accused Jordan of basically sabotaging her friend

Steve Scalise's speakership bid and said, quote, hell no, she wouldn't support the House Judiciary

Chairman for Speaker. Well, she's flipped. So too did Ken Calvert and Vern Buchanan and Drew Ferguson.

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