Today's Politico Playbook Audio Briefing is presented by Google.

Good Monday morning. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing.

And I'm Anna Palmer. There are 50 days until election day and 16 days until the government

runs out of money. Those are two very important numbers this Monday morning.

Washington needs to balance two concerns in the

coming weeks. It has to put together a package to fund the government to avoid a September 30th

shutdown. And it needs to also mollify a growing clutch of anxious House Democrats who are agitating

for further votes on COVID relief. Let's get this out of the way.

Most people involved in legislating do not expect a government shutdown,

nor did they expect anything resembling a COVID relief bill

to reach President Donald Trump's desk before election day.

But how Congress wraps up its work for the fall

is far from clear a growing number of House Democrats are communicating to their leadership that they are awfully

frustrated.

They don't like the COVID relief talks have broken down.

The two sides aren't talking at all.

The House passed the Heroes Act four months ago and these Democrats are suggesting to their

party brass that they need something new to talk about on the campaign trail,

blaming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell isn't enough.

Our colleagues, Heather Kagle and Sarah Ferris, expertly cataloged some of this angst last week.

There are three general directions the House Democrats can go in.

Number one, they can do nothing, which doesn't really appear to be much of an option at the moment.

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