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03/04/2016 09:09 AM EDT


By Rachael Bade (rbade@politico.com or @RachaelMBade)

DEMS FIND THEIR PRESSURE POINT ON SCOTUS - "Republicans mum on possibility of trump filling Supreme Court seat." Alexander Bolton for The Hill: "The decision by Senate Republicans to block President Obama's Supreme Court nominee is becoming a bigger political gamble as Donald Trump comes closer to clinching their party's nomination. Endangered Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), among others, have tried to distance themselves from Trump, but the Supreme Court debate is making that task more difficult. Democrats increasingly argue that Republicans are threatening to block Obama's replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia so that Trump has the power
to shape the future of the court... Senate Republicans are leery of the association with Trump because they privately harbor doubts about his judgment. Few, however, are willing to criticize him publicly... Senate Republicans on Thursday declined to say whether they would prefer that Trump fill the court vacancy instead of Obama." bit.ly/1LYhuTg

GRASSLEY GETS A DEMOCRATIC CHALLENGER. Just as he's getting pounded from the left for vowing to block Obama's SCOTUS pick and probing Hillary Clinton's closest campaign staffer for conflicts of interest. Jennifer Steinhauer and David M. Herszenhorn report for the N.Y. Times: "Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican and Judiciary Committee chairman who has become the face of his party's refusal to hold a hearing on President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court. As Mr. Grassley listened to his critics in the Senate chamber, a potentially strong Democratic challenger unexpectedly stepped forward in Iowa to run against him. It was another sign of increasing pressure on Mr. Grassley, whose bid
for a seventh term had been all but assured before the Supreme Court vacancy arose." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3d56c9e4334d2c6421ece917fcfa56c9ad3565cd6c151649abdbd75a15e2b98a

VEEP Joe Biden is out with a N.Y. Times op-ed, lecturing on the Senate's "duty to advise and consent." Check it out: "In my 36-year tenure in the United States Senate... I presided or helped preside over nine nominees to the Supreme Court, from both Republican and Democratic presidents...[W]e adhered to the process explicitly laid out in the Constitution: The president has the constitutional duty to nominate; the Senate has the constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent. It is written plainly in the Constitution... That's why I was so surprised and saddened to see Republican leaders tell President Obama and me that they would not even consider a Supreme Court nominee this
year.... It is an unprecedented act of obstruction." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3d56c9e4334d2c6436a12c4d75077e37397c35c9702c21dd94081c81a5303515

WHAT THE H-E-DOUBLE-HOCKEY-STICKS KIND OF WEATHER IS THIS? It's March 4, 2016 - and the ground is white outside. This is Huddle, where our fingers are freezing this morning as we type. Please, snow: go away. Seung Min is back on Huddle next week. Reachable here: skim@politico.com or @seungminkim.

TODAY IN CONGRESS: The Senate is out until Monday. The House is on recess until the following week.

AROUND THE HILL. Notta. CPAC anyone? Today's lineup includes: RNC's Reince Priebus, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Sen. Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina.

RYAN DUCKS ROMNEY VS. TRUMP FIGHT. Just before his ex-running mate Mitt Romney hiked up to a CPAC stage to rip Donald Trump a new one, Speaker Paul Ryan ran for cover, striking a conciliatory tone that the former GOP presidential candidate threw out the window. Here's John Bresnahan with the read: "Mitt Romney's running mate is staying out of the 2012 nominee's slugfest with Donald Trump. Paul Ryan told reporters Thursday that he hadn't even seen a copy of Romney's speech denouncing Trump before Romney went public. The speaker said House Republicans would work with 'whoever the nominee is.'"

"Ryan, however, did say he 'laughed out loud' when Trump said Ryan would 'pay a big price' if he couldn't get along with the billionaire businessman if he becomes the GOP presidential nominee. 'Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction these days. I don't really think anything of it,' Ryan said. 'I'm a good-natured guy. I get along with everybody.'" http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3d56c9e4334d2c64d3f60ef2d92eeb81ad8306de86c05c85fd9034d2c42b622e

KEEPING PROMISES - "Ryan moves ahead with promised overhaul of House rules." Jake Sherman reports: "House Republican leadership has quietly launched a ten-month process aimed at overhauling both their party and the institution's rules, following through on Speaker Paul Ryan's campaign promise to change the way the chamber operates. The effort is focused on all aspects of how Congress works, with meetings and hearings on issues ranging from 'restoring balance to the authorization and appropriations process,' to targeted sessions on the 'process for removing elected leaders.' The collaborative structure is clearly designed to give the entire conference buy in to the process. It's a
significant development, with potentially wide-ranging impact. Nearly every lawmaker has a gripe about how the institution works. And senior Republicans believe that the vast majority of GOP lawmakers want to make it more difficult to remove a speaker." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3d56c9e4334d2c64a8667dea9701cc4e0deb3d7813c5a10f50924d15d3cdcd81

STILL, PROBLEMS AFOOT - "House leadership budget panned by conservatives." The GOP conference remains split over a spending plan, a top priority for Speaker Paul Ryan this year, our Lauren French reports: "House GOP leaders made their latest attempt Thursday to fashion a budget to pass conservative muster, but it was quickly dismissed by hard-right lawmakers as not nearly good enough... Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said he won't support the plan, which was presented by GOP leaders to the House Republican Conference Thursday morning. 'I'm not enthused about the proposal. Nothing's changed,' he said. 'They are still spending more money, which I don't support. I'm not inclined
to support' it." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3d56c9e4334d2c64ac2fd0acd0abc2af078ad020fd4efe986cc91789ada03d74

EVERYONE WANTS TO TALK TO PAGLIANO. Last September, Senate Homeland and Senate Judiciary Chairmen Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley asked the Justice Department about the possibility of giving Clinton's IT staffer Bryan Pagliano immunity from prosecution. And that came with a request: That any immunity deal the FBI grant him also include a requirement for the man who took the Fifth to speak with Congressional investigators. Now, the two Republican chairmen are doubling down on that request, asking for a copy of the immunity agreement to see if that's part of this new deal. From the letter: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3d56c9e4334d2c642d89591d75d2053194cf65b984103c2b6f95308143384881

MOVING ON. Andy Duberstein of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is celebrating his last day on the panel after five years, heading to Sard Verbinnen & Co to become vice president in their New York City office. From Andy's email: "It has been an incredible honor to work for Chairman Fred Upton and the entire E&C team. There is no more committed, hard working, and impressive team on the Hill and I'm lucky to have been a part of it for so long."

TWEET OF THE DAY: Rep. Lynn Jenkins pays her respects on the twitters: "Happy 75th birthday to my favorite candy, M&Ms! @MarsGlobal" See the pic: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3d56c9e4334d2c6443e5f13e8deb2b9d779fecc41aa4a37f0bce097918a4ac4f (H/t Daniel Lippman)

THURSDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER: Will Feeney in Rep. John Lewis' office was the first to answer that Andrew Johnson was the first president to meet an organized baseball team at the White House. In August 1965, he met with the Washington Nationals and Brooklyn Atlantics.

TODAY'S TRIVIA: Comes from Logan Ferree, our trivia runner-up yesterday: "In honor of Scott Kelly returning to Earth, setting the longest record of a U.S. astronaut in space, who was the former Astronaut and 'Leap Day Baby' who ran for Congress in the 1980s (he lost) and had previously helped set an earlier record for time in space (8 weeks)?" Email me at rbade@politico.com

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