AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Now to the campaign. We've got rallies and stump speeches giving way to zingers and counterpunches as the candidates steel themselves for Tuesday's debate. That's the presidential candidates, of course. Lots of other candidates - the entire House and a third of the Senate - return to their day jobs on Capitol Hill tomorrow. What's on their agenda? NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram joins us now to preview the weekend politics. Good morning, Deepa.
DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: Hey, Ayesha.
RASCOE: So let's start with the debate, Tuesday in Philadelphia. But it was only this past week that the rules got firmed up, right?
SHIVARAM: Yeah. I mean, there was a long back and forth between the Trump and Harris campaigns and ABC News, which is the network that's hosting this debate. And the main issue is that Harris's campaign wanted the mics to be unmuted the whole time. And that would be different rules than the last debate in June between Trump and President Biden because in that debate, the mics were muted unless it was the candidate's turn to speak, and that was a rule the Biden team had insisted on when he was the candidate. And as you remember, that debate turned out to be really bad for Biden. So the Trump campaign wanted to keep those same rules as-is since they were the original rules that, you know, were agreed to.
RASCOE: So what made the Harris team finally agree to the original terms?
SHIVARAM: Well, the campaign sent a letter to ABC News this past week, and they said that Harris will be at a disadvantage by this muted-mic format because they say it shields Trump from having direct exchanges with Harris. But they ultimately relented for a few reasons. One, if there's a candidate who keeps interrupting even when their mic is off, the moderator might warn them and say what the candidate has been saying to the audience so everyone can kind of be kept in the loop. And it's also possible that, you know, the network decides to open up both mikes if there's a lot of chatter between the two candidates so that the audience can hear what's going on.
RASCOE: Donald Trump says he's ready, and his campaign says, the campaigning that he does is preparation enough. What do you know about how Kamala Harris is preparing?
SHIVARAM: Yeah, well, they're definitely preparing for the debate and also for what happens after the debate. The campaign just announced this morning that Kamala Harris will be traveling to swing states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania later this week after the debate. But in terms of actually preparing, you know, she's been spending the last several days in Pittsburgh, outside of Washington, but still, you know, in a critical swing state of Pennsylvania. So she's been able to pop into the campaign trail a little bit. She visited a local business in town yesterday.
And in terms of prep, you know, I've talked to former Harris advisors. And they say Harris approaches debate prep with a lot of that same background from her law school training days, you know, in terms of how she distills down a lot of information. Jill Habig, who worked with Harris on her 2016 run, says Harris' time as a courtroom prosecutor allowed her to hone future debate skills, especially when it comes to responding quickly in unexpected moments that come up.
JILL HABIG: Lots of unpredictable things happen during a trial. You can have your materials prepared, but a witness could say anything.
RASCOE: Well, that's true. Turning to Congress, lawmakers have been out of town for the last five weeks. They're back in session tomorrow. What do they need to get done in the three weeks they have until they break again to campaign for election day?
SHIVARAM: Yeah. I mean, for starters, they need to keep the government funded, right? The new fiscal year starts on October 1, so Congress needs to pass a measure that would essentially keep the government funded until March of next year. Now, Republicans are trying to tack on a measure into the government funding bill, and that would require people to provide a proof of citizenship when they register to vote. Democrats, of course, who control the Senate have already thrown cold water on that measure.
So at this point, things are pretty unclear on Congress moving quickly enough to reach an agreement before the end of this month. And as you can imagine, if they don't, there could be another partial government shutdown. That would definitely complicate things, especially in an election year.
RASCOE: NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram. Deepa, thank you so much.
SHIVARAM: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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