Hey, good morning. I'm Playbook co-author Eugene Daniels. It's Tuesday, October 3rd. Here's what's

driving the day. We all knew what's going to happen, but it was still a shock when it did.

Matt Gates filed the motion to vacate the speakership against Kevin McCarthy, something that he had been

threatening to do and hinting at for weeks and weeks and weeks, and it has now officially

happened. This is the first time in decades that the Congress has had to deal with this.

It is going to be one of those huge historic moments as this kind of

figures itself out and things shake out.

McCarthy has about 48 hours to kind of figure out how to deal with it.

His allies tell us they expect him to table and basically try to effectively kill the motion.

But Gates, on the steps of the Capitol after he made his announcement,

told reporters that he had enough Republican votes to push this through unless Democrats step in

and save McCarthy. Now, for their part, Democrats have been pretty quiet, saying not much

about what they're working on, how they're

working on it. Currently, they are waiting for a signal from minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and his

leadership team on how to handle it. Jeffries and his ally spent much of last night huddling

with leaders of caucuses, hearing out senior Democrats on what they want to happen. There was a late

night meeting with Jeffries to kind of discuss some of this. There's also a meeting this morning

at 9 a.m. in the Democratic caucus meeting. That hurdle is expected to be so closely held. Members

won't be allowed to take their phones in. This is per notice that went out last night. They're really

trying to keep it secret,

at least keep it secret, as long as they possibly can. There are some Democrats who want to cut a deal

with McCarthy, basically make him work for it and figure out a way to get him to save him here.

...