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09/29/2016 07:55 AM EDT


By Heather Caygle (hcaygle@politico.com or @heatherscope)

With assistance from Seung Min Kim and Daniel Lippman

SEE YA LATER ALLIGATOR- On Capitol Hill there are moments that seem almost like magic-the sweet spot that happens when a deadline is just close enough for lawmakers to feel the threat coupled with the possibility of getting out of town early (#JetFumes)-and suddenly, things can happen at warp speed. A weeks-long funding fight was wrapped up in hours Wednesday and just like that, Congress is gone until after the election.

The deets: "The legislation, which had White House backing, would fund the federal government through Dec. 9, provide $1.1 billion to combat the Zika virus and send $500 million to Louisiana and other states facing natural disasters," report my intrepid Hill colleagues Rachael Bade, Seung Min Kim and Ben Weyl. The House also passed a water infrastructure bill authorizing $170 million in Flint aid, a key to Wednesday's rapid wrap up.

WHAT'S NEXT FOR PAUL RYAN? House Speaker Paul Ryan's meteoric rise has its downsides too-people are always speculating about what's next when he's just trying to tout his ambitious policy agenda. Another go at speaker? A presidential run, perhaps? Jake and Rachael take a look at the road ahead: "Ryan's allies say he won't be held hostage. Some of them say he'd be better off politically not running for speaker, with all the day-to-day trench warfare involved. But for now, Ryan isn't going anywhere."

"But the speaker's allies have become keenly aware of his precarious political future, the daunting challenge of governing under a President Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump ... All while weighing the possibility of his own bid for president, which Ryan did not rule out in a speech on Wednesday."

GOP: NO CUBA AMBASSADOR FOR OBAMA - Senate Republicans have long made clear that if President Barack Obama tried to nominate an ambassador to Cuba, they wouldn't move to confirm the nominee. Well, Obama did - by nominating the U.S.'s current top diplomat, Jeffrey DeLaurentis, to the post - and GOP senators aren't changing their mind. "This is not something that we're gonna deal with this year, OK? It's just not," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, whose panel would take up the ambassador nomination, told Huddle.

Corker speculated that the White House put forward the nomination to "change the subject" from another big foreign policy issue on the Hill this week: the congressional override of Obama's veto of legislation allowing 9/11 families to sue foreign governments for terrorism committed on U.S. soil.

Late in the game, man: Even Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a big Republican backer of the Obama administration's policy to normalize relations with Cuba, noted: "It's kind of late in the game." Still, he stressed the need for the United States to have a Senate-confirmed ambassador to the communist-led nation. "You can have your disagreements with the president on the policy, but Americans traveling and doing business with Cuba deserve to have full representation," Flake told Huddle. "Nobody's questioning this guy's qualifications. DeLaurentis is a skilled diplomat and he's not an Obama bundler."

WELCOME TO FRID-ERR-THURSDAY, Sept. 29. You're reading POLITICO's Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill. This rain is bummin' us out but we're glad the threat of working this weekend is off the table. #ThanksCongress

TODAY IN CONGRESS- The Senate convenes at 10 a.m. but there will be no votes. The House is gone.

AROUND THE HILL- Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Chuck Schumer hold a press conference at 10:30 a.m. in S-325. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi holds her weekly press conference at 10:45 a.m. in HVC Studio A. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell holds a press conference at 11 a.m. in S-325.

House Speaker Paul Ryan holds his weekly press conference at 11:30 a.m. in HVC Studio A. Sens. Sherrod Brown, Bob Casey, Jeff Merkley, Ed Markey and Mazie Hirono hold a press conference on TPP in S-325 at 12 p.m.

Paparazzi watch: The legendary Patti LaBelle will be on Capitol Hill today touting her new line of desserts during an invite-only reception and tasting hosted by Walmart. Bres could hardly contain his excitement when he heard the news.

OFF THE HILL- Speaker Ryan will participate in the Washington Ideas Forum starting at 9:05 a.m. Tune in: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=8794b601e841085bbc25432b80f67e9fd24846f1fd653ad37e0d061827da6c2d

THE OTHER HOUSE SPEAKER- House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan is arguably the second most powerful House Republican, but can he transcend being more than just the leader of the 40-odd rebels who are a thorn in leadership's side? Rachael traveled to Ohio for the Jordan deep dive.

Jordan's power "seems to have reached a tipping point," she writes. "An increasing number of Jordan's Republican House colleagues are fed up with his tactics. In the case of the impeachment hearing, it gave him and his allies another cathartic moment to rake [IRS Commissioner John] Koskinen over the coals, but the exercise mostly just angered other Republicans."

Damn the torpedoes: "Jordan stands by the group's damn-the-torpedoes approach, on impeachment and plenty of other matters (and there have been plenty) ... 'We have to win on something,' he said during an interview in his central Ohio district, frustration bubbling in his voice. 'It's like a football team that's 0 and 9. The last week of the season, you're not playing for the state playoffs; you're playing to win the game and set the tone for the future.'"

CONGRESS NEEDLES OBAMA ONE LAST TIME-Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to override the veto of a bill allowing 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia. That, coupled with the bitter finger-pointing from the White House and frustrated lawmakers that followed was "a fitting coda to the dysfunctional relationship between the Obama White House and Capitol Hill," reports Seung Min.

Where ya at? "Notably, many influential lawmakers shared the White House's concerns about the legislation ...But instead of siding with the administration, Congress ended up blaming the White House for being MIA in the fight."

DOES TED CRUZ ENJOY THE SENATE LIFE? "When he's not being pulled back into the presidential race, [Sen. Ted] Cruz appears to be doing his day job with a little less confrontation than he is normally credited with by his colleagues," Paul Kane writes for the Washington Post. "The senator disagrees with the assessment that he's any different now than when he provoked a government shutdown in 2013 over Obamacare. ...But some Republican colleagues - clearly not all, but some - have detected a slight change in tone, at least for now."

THE BOEHNER BIRTHDAY SONG LIVES ON- Former House Speaker John Boehner would probably be proud that his infamous birthday song is living on long after his retirement. Senate Republican freshmen, many of them former House members, got together to sing "happy birthday" to fellow freshman (and former House lawmaker) Bill Cassidy in the Capitol rotunda. Watch the video: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=8794b601e841085b7f40a05ca8f1c2415f84be348c809e60530bae7c41296992

GOP ADVICE TO TRUMP: LEAVE LEWINSKY OUT OF IT- Senate Republicans had some advice for Donald Trump this week: Stay away from Bill Clinton's history of sex scandals when criticizing Hillary, Burgess reports. It's just not worth it, they say. But is it fair game? "'I'd prefer that didn't happen,' said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). 'I can't say it's out of bounds because she's put up with it over and over.'"

On the flip side, if Trump did dredge up the past, Clinton backers say it "would allow them to bring up Trump's own infidelities and crass talk about women and sex over more than two decades, a contrast the party believes would hurt Trump far more than it would hurt Clinton. 'He's got a problem not just with women but with people who care about women,' said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii)."

MENENDEZ TRIAL IN 2017? Bres with the latest: "A federal judge in New Jersey has set a tentative Sept. 2017 date for the bribery and corruption trial of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, more than two-and-a-half years after he was charged, according to a new court order."

THUNE REFLECTS ON A NEW CHAPTER- Sen. John Thune reflects on his new life as a first-time grandfather in the Huffington Post: "You think about how busy life got. How the days and weeks turned into months and years. ...And then there's that moment where you look into your granddaughter's eyes and you see the past meet the future. For a brief instant, it's as if time stands still. Everything is crystal clear."

SHOW ME THE MONEY- As members were playing the blame game during the funding stalemate in the Capitol this month, the fundraising business was booming down the street at Charlie Palmer Steak. There were dozens of lunches "organized by lawmakers this month, as they rushed to build up their campaign accounts before a Sept. 30 deadline for their last quarterly campaign finance reports before the Nov. 8 election," reports Roll Call's Stephanie Akin.

REP. MURPHY GETS A MAN BREATHING AGAIN- Rep. Tim Murphy, certified in CPR since January 2015, got a man breathing again after Murphy and staffers found the man unconscious and without a pulse in a Rayburn elevator Wednesday. Your Huddle host with more: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=8794b601e841085bce83c32ead11ee985ca55e58b5de6ea7c73415485deee537

DELAY, DELAY, DELAY- The House Freedom Caucus is thinking about asking Speaker Ryan to put off leadership elections until after the lame duck, Rachael reports, a sign that "the group's support for the current crop of leaders could be contingent on how they handle year-end legislative business."

ETHICS COMMITTEE DISCIPLINES McKINLEY- "Ending a long-running dispute, the House Ethics Committee disciplined Rep. Dave McKinley (R-W.Va.) on Wednesday for failing to change the name of his former firm once he was elected to Congress in 2010," Bres reports.

MOVIN' ON UP-- Jeremy Haldeman has been tapped to run the Peace Corps' new office of external affairs, which will coordinate all of the group's external outreach, including with Congress. Haldeman is being promoted from his current job as director of congressional affairs for the group and previously worked on the Hill as staff director for a House Foreign Affairs panel and in Rep. Russ Carnahan's office.

WEDNESDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER- Logan Ferree was the first to correctly guess that members of the House of Representatives and the British House of Commons played several games of chess to ease tensions but ended in a draw. And Peter Roff gets style points for guessing that they played the first ever recorded session of Pokémon Go.

TODAY'S TRIVIA- Logan with today's question: There have been only two motions to vacate the chair to remove the Speaker of the House. When was the first filed and by who? The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in tomorrow's Huddle. Get at me: hcaygle@politico.com

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