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09/16/2016 07:58 AM EDT


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

With assistance from Rachael Bade

THE HIVE IS BUZZING-Good morning and happy Friday Huddle readers! Both the House and Senate are gone today but that doesn't mean the Capitol is quiet. Staffers are busy toiling away on a bipartisan, short-term spending bill that satisfies both sides enough to bring it up for a vote in the Senate early next week. The sticking points? "Zika, disaster aid, ICANN transition-the usual stuff," Sen. John Thune told reporters as he was jumping on one of the Capitol subways Thursday afternoon.

Zika funding update: "I think they realize they've got to get rid of the political riders on it," Florida Sen. Bill Nelson told reporters Thursday. "And so I think that's where it's going, in that direction. With [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell behind it, I think that'll be a good thing."

So what's next? Lawmakers are hoping to reach a deal by Monday, when the Senate has teed up a procedural vote on the stopgap bill, reports my colleague Ben Weyl.

IMPEACHMENT COMPROMISE SCARE EXPLAINED: Barely 12 hours after Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan and Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte struck their deal to postpone an impeachment vote in exchange for a hearing with IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, the accord seemed to unravel. Rep. Tim Huelskamp, still bitter after losing his primary to an establishment-backed figure, told reporters the HFC never agreed to delay the impeachment vote until after the election and threatened to force the issue again next week. That raised a bunch of eyebrows and speculation that the deal was dead.

Several HFC members privately preferred the vote over the hearing. Turns out, however, that Jordan and Goodlatte DID agree to bump the matter until after Election Day in order to get the hearing, but the group of conservative hardliners technically still has to approve the matter. (Remember: anyone single member can force this matter on the floor.)

What to expect: The House Freedom Caucus will likely discuss it at their next fly-in meeting Tuesday and are all expected to back the deal. Forcing a floor vote a week after an accord was struck, insiders say, would probably make it easier for moderates to put the IRS issue to bed via a "table" motion. Not to mention undermine Jordan's leadership on behalf of the group.

RUBIO UP BY TWO IN MURPHY'S POLL- Sen. Marco Rubio is leading challenger Rep. Patrick Murphy by two points in the latest internal poll from Murphy's campaign, reports Marc Caputo this morning. "Rubio's 47-45 percent lead is buoyed by his higher name ID, solid GOP backing and the support of Hispanics voters, according to the polling memo from Global Strategy Group."

More bad news for Murphy: "The bad poll numbers for Murphy coincided with a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee decision to pull $800,000 in TV ads - money that Murphy could use at this juncture to boost his name ID, one of his biggest weaknesses in the Senate contest."

THEM'S FIGHTIN' WORDS- Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid turned his attention back to Donald Trump Thursday, blasting the GOP nominee as "a human leech who will bleed the country and sit at his golf resort laughing," in what the Huffington Post described as an "epic rant."

But Trump fired his own shots in an interview with the Washington Post's Robert Costa after being told of Reid saying he wasn't 'slim and trim': "'Harry Reid? I think he should go back and start working out again with his rubber work-out pieces,' an apparent reference to the exercise band that snapped last year and caused Reid to fall and break a number of ribs and some facial bones."

FRIDAY, FRIDAY, FRI-YAY! Welcome to Sept. 16. You're reading POLITICO's Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill. Football forecast: Bama kicks off against Ole Miss in Oxford at 3:30 Saturday.

TODAY IN CONGRESS- Both the House and Senate are out.

** A message from United for Medical Research: America's investment in medical research - through the National Institutes of Health - is making amazing things possible. This week, United for Medical Research proudly launches a new podcast series, Amazing Things, that tells the stories of NIH-funded research on the cusp of changing lives and saving healthcare dollars. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=7406c415e64ff681235667a5296fdeffcfe96c2ae236c27cbdb7de73a2feca98 **

AROUND THE HILL- Nada. In the words of former House Speaker John Boehner: zip-a-dee-doo-dah.

THE PROBLEM EVERY SPEAKER HAS- When Paul Ryan became House Speaker last fall, he promised to do some things differently, especially when it came to funding the government. "Ryan declared his hatred for end-of-year spending deals and signaled he'd do what ever he could to avoid being stuck with a massive appropriations package at the end of 2016," reports the Hill's Scott Wong. "A year later, despite those efforts, many on Capitol Hill expect Ryan will get stuck pushing through a trillion-dollar omnibus anyway. It's not for a lack of trying by the Wisconsin Republican."

CORKER, GRAHAM WANT CHANGES TO 9/11 BILL- Sens. Bob Corker and Lindsey Graham want changes to the 9/11 victims bill that cleared Congress last week to "make it more difficult for the families to pursue lawsuits but could also make it harder for the US to be sued for alleged wrongdoing," reports CNN's Ted Barrett. President Obama plans to veto the bill but since the measure passed both the House and Senate without objection, the bill's supporters are confident they have enough backing for a veto override.

Post-election hopes: "Corker said he hopes a congressional attempt to override a veto won't come until after the election so there is time to negotiate changes that would be satisfactory to both sides. ...Graham, who said he's in close contact with Saudi officials about the issue, warned it could destroy America's relationship with Saudi Arabia, a critical ally in the tumultuous Middle East. 'This is an odd situation in the sense that 9/11 families are high on everybody's list to take care of,' Graham said."

Related read: The New York Times has more on the "intense lobbying campaign by the White House and Saudi Arabia" to "cast doubt on what had appeared to be an inevitable override of the president's long-expected veto."

REP. POE TALKS LEUKEMIA BATTLE- Rep. Ted Poe, who announced his leukemia diagnosis this summer, told the Texas Tribune's Abby Livingston that the treatments are going well and he feels "real good." He said he's received an outpouring of bipartisan support and friend and fellow Texas Rep. Pete Olson even "spent much of his summer taking photos of landmarks in Poe's Houston-area district, and in Europe with supportive signs and an orange '#TeamPoe' wristband."

As for Poe, "even amid chemotherapy, he's mostly back to business. Recently, he presided over the House from the speaker's chair, and he's back to delivering early morning speeches on the House floor and declaring, 'That's just the way it is.'"

THE COLIN POWELL EFFECT-- "On Capitol Hill, Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the chamber's No. 2 Democrat, said the news of Mr. Powell's hacked emails had him thinking that Senator Chuck Schumer's never-ending use of an old-fashioned flip phone 'makes more sense than ever,'" write Michael Shear and Nicholas Fandos for the New York Times.

SAGE GROUSE SHOWDOWN STALLS NDAA- The battle over the sage grouse-more specifically, whether to ban the bird from the endangered species list-has stopped a final agreement on the defense policy bill in its tracks, kicking action on the measure into the lame duck.

"A spokesman for the Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee said the issue - a crucial one across the West but lower profile for the rest of the country - emerged as one of the final sticking points in the behemoth policy bill, which also serves as this year's primary battleground for several other politically contentious issues," writes Karoun Demirjian for the Washington Post.

LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE-The National Press Club's annual spelling bee returns next Wednesday and like any true champ, Rep. Don Beyer isn't just sitting on his keister, hoping another victory comes his way. The defending champion has an intense training regimen, spelling words left and right as he goes about his day-tying his tie, getting off the House elevator, you get the idea. Watch the video (you'll even see VP nominee Tim Kaine, the 2013 winner, in the background) and if you see Rep. Beyer in the hallway before Wednesday night, ask him how to spell rafraichissoir.

PIC DU JOUR-- Bill Clark (@billclarkphotos): The #SenateSubway door closes on @SenatorBurr 's leg as he heads back to the RSOB. See the pic: pic.twitter.com/Q2EMVbLSFa

DNC FUNNELS DOLLARS DOWN BALLOT-The DNC is giving both its House and Senate campaign committees $2.5 million each in an effort to ramp up down-ballot action. "Combined with the DNC and its joint arrangement with the state party committees, [Hillary] Clinton's campaign brought in $143 million in August, though the DNC itself reported having just over $10 million on hand to start August (its most recent filing)," reports Gabriel Debenedetti.

IN NEWS THAT SURPRISES NO ONE-Former House Speaker John Boehner, known for loving his smoke breaks, has joined the board of Reynolds American, the mega tobacco company based in Winston-Salem, N.C.

THURSDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER- Eli Schechner was the first to correctly guess that 313 women have been elected to Congress but three states-Delaware, Mississippi and Vermont-have never elected a woman to the House or Senate.

TODAY'S TRIVIA- Eli with today's question: Who was the first Hispanic/Latino member of Congress to be reelected? The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in Monday's Huddle. Get at me: hcaygle@politico.com

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** A message from United for Medical Research: The greatest returns on the federal government's investment in the National Institutes of Health are discoveries that lead to improved health, longer lives and the ability to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. Without question, NIH-funded research is making the impossible possible. Listen to the Amazing Things podcast with Harvard University's Amy Wagers and learn how a new gene editing technique - CRISPR-Cas9 - is opening the door to development of a potential treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. NIH funding: Because America's investment in medical research is making amazing things possible.
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