LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Last night, Vice President Harris and former President Trump faced off over the economy, abortion, foreign policy and immigration.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Trump's goal - to tie Harris to the record of President Biden.
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DONALD TRUMP: She doesn't have a plan. She copied Biden's plan, and it's, like, four sentences, like run, Spot, run.
MARTIN: As for Harris, she sought to define herself to voters as a new and younger leader, who cares about them.
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VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Clearly, I am not Joe Biden. And I am certainly not Donald Trump.
FADEL: Senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith watched the debate and joins us now. Good morning, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: OK, so quite the performance last night. What did you learn about the candidates and their policies?
KEITH: There were a lot of questions about policy, but most of the answers were really aimed at trying to frame each other and themselves.
FADEL: Right.
KEITH: Harris' pitch was about turning the page on Trump, and Trump's pitch was that the country is a mess, the world is falling apart, and it was better when he was in office. He talked a lot about immigration and said he would lead a mass deportation, though he did not explain how it would work. He tried to distance himself from unpopular restrictions on abortion, and Harris did everything she could to tie him to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and its aftermath.
FADEL: Yeah. And most people remember debates more for style rather than substance. So what stood out to you there?
KEITH: Harris clearly had spent a lot of time preparing lines of attack aimed at getting under Trump's skin, and some of them definitely worked. Trump was more frenetic. Some of it seemed prepared. A lot of it seemed improvised, much like his rally speeches. You know, in a presidential debate, the split-screen shot of the candidates...
FADEL: Right.
KEITH: ...With one candidate speaking and the other reacting nonverbally can easily become the story of the debate.
FADEL: Right.
KEITH: And that appears to be happening here. Vice President Harris looked directly at Trump often, sometimes resting her chin on her hands and raising her eyebrows. Her facial expressions were doing a lot of work. Meanwhile, the former president looked straight ahead. He furrowed his brow, referenced Biden more than a dozen times and not once addressed Harris by name. He just called her she and her.
FADEL: Wow.
KEITH: Yeah. He did land some punches, though, some about shifts in policy positions over time, her shifts, and at the end, in his closing statement, asked her what she's been doing for the past 3 1/2 years.
FADEL: OK, so what are people going to be talking about at the water cooler or whatever the modern equivalent is this morning?
KEITH: Well, it happened after the debate, but pop megastar Taylor Swift posted on Instagram that she had watched it and would be voting for Harris.
FADEL: I mean, that's big. Swifties are pretty powerful. She has 238 million followers on Instagram. But it's not totally surprising. What about debate rather than Swift moments?
KEITH: Trump's tendency to veer between subjects and traffic in falsehoods and conspiracy theories was quite striking.
FADEL: Yeah.
KEITH: In response to a question about why he asked Republicans to kill a bipartisan deal to boost border security, Trump started boasting about the crowds at his rallies. He claimed Harris buses people to attend hers, says we're headed for World War III, before then turning to immigration, saying immigrants are destroying the country. And then he amplified a dehumanizing and fully debunked story about Haitian migrants in Ohio.
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TRUMP: A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating - they're eating the pets.
KEITH: They're not talking about it because it's not true.
FADEL: Right.
KEITH: Other eye-popping moments from the debate for Trump include him very nearly accusing Harris of being responsible for the assassination attempt against him and again insisting that he won the 2020 election and falsely denying that he had anything to do with the January 6 insurrection. Harris responded to the election denial by saying, it is a problem that someone who wants to be president is, quote, "confused" by facts.
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HARRIS: Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people, so let's be clear about that, and clearly he is having a very difficult time processing that.
FADEL: So a lot of falsehoods and conspiracy theories from Donald Trump. This was the first time these two leaders have met. Will there be another debate before the election?
KEITH: Well, Harris' campaign was quick to say this debate was so great that they looked forward to another one in October. Trump went to the spin room after the debate to say this one wasn't fair, and he didn't seem that eager for another one.
FADEL: NPR's Tamara Keith. Thank you, Tam.
KEITH: You're welcome.
FADEL: Michel, did you stay up to watch last night's presidential debate?
MARTIN: I did, and that's why I'm so tired today.
FADEL: Oh, my gosh, same, same. Now, we weren't alone, of course. This debate was the first - and it could be the only - meeting between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, and it drew a huge audience.
MARTIN: It did, and I bet in part that's because there were watch parties across the country, like this one in Philadelphia.
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HARRIS: ...With what is known to be a dictator who would eat you for lunch.
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TRUMP: In Springfield, they're eating the dogs...
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TRUMP: ...The people who came in. They're eating the cats.
FADEL: Now, this was a nonpartisan watch party, and Molly Hasson was listening for the vice president's agenda.
MOLLY HASSON: I have, you know, kids in college, and I want them to have the ability to live out their American dream. So I want to hear, like, a plan for making the economy strong again. And Kamala Harris saying that she has an opportunity economy - I love that.
MARTIN: James Turner was also there, and he says he was skeptical of Harris, coming into the debate.
JAMES TURNER: I wasn't sold on Kamala Harris. I was sold on her tonight by her responses, by her integrity to, like, answer the questions. And she actually had a plan.
FADEL: Now, she didn't convince everybody. At another watch party in Milwaukee, Ken Dortzbach (ph) was still skeptical. He showed up to a gathering of Republicans who are Trump skeptics wearing a purple tie, a compromise, he says, between red and blue.
KEN DORTZBACH: It was unclear for me with Kamala Harris, does she - is she going to give us four more years of Joe Biden, or is she going to give us something different? And if it's different, what is that going to be? That really wasn't answered.
MARTIN: But for David Irwin, who says he almost always voted Republican, he said Trump's performance underscored why he's put off by the GOP nominee.
DAVID IRWIN: It'd be hard for me to say that I'm hoping for Harris as president. I will likely reluctantly have to vote for her because I find the alternative so distasteful.
FADEL: Now, Elizabeth Brown leans toward Trump on policies, but she's also considering voting third party.
ELIZABETH BROWN: I know that the Black community usually vote blue. We have no results. In my community, no matter who was in the White House, my life have not changed.
MARTIN: After watching the debate, Brown says she's still undecided between Trump and the couch.
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MARTIN: Well, we've seen this movie before. Congress is barreling towards a government shutdown deadline as both parties dig in.
FADEL: But this time, it's an election year, and House Republicans are pushing a partisan bill that is drawing opposition from Democrats and members of their own party.
MARTIN: NPR's congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales has more. Good morning, Claudia.
CLAUDIA GRISALES, BYLINE: Good morning, Michel.
MARTIN: So Republicans want to attach a plan to this stopgap bill that would require voters to prove their citizenship, obviously to prevent noncitizens from voting, but I thought this was already against the law in federal elections.
GRISALES: Right. That's correct. They want to attach what they call the SAVE Act, but Democrats and even some Republicans think it will not save anything when it comes to funding the government. But House Speaker Mike Johnson compares it to underage drinkers accessing alcohol.
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MIKE JOHNSON: It is against federal law, but so is minors buying alcohol, but we still require identification to do it.
GRISALES: And former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee seeking reelection, weighed in yesterday to say Republicans should not agree to anything unless this provision is in this temporary funding plan. And the deadline to sort all of this out is September 30, so there's less than three weeks to go.
MARTIN: So, Claudia, you were telling us that Republicans have passed this before in the House with the help of a handful of Democrats. So how is this time different?
GRISALES: Well, before, when it was passed, earlier this summer in July, it was not tied to a funding plan to avert a government shutdown. So we're not expecting the handful of House Democrats who helped pass it before to help again. And I've also heard from a number of moderate Republicans who are not interested in bringing this up now either. Also, none of the leaders in Congress want to see a shutdown, and they all say this will get resolved. So it's extremely common for one or both sides to start a negotiation offering proposals they know will never get passed, usually to prove a political point, just like we're seeing right now ahead of an election.
And, yes, now Democrats are adamantly opposed, and they want a relatively straightforward temporary funding bill that perhaps includes some disaster aid funding, such as for Hawaii, which is still seeing the island of Maui recover after fires last year. But that's likely it. Here's Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
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CHUCK SCHUMER: Only bipartisanship will help us meet that deadline. But instead of pursuing bipartisanship, Speaker Johnson is yet again - yet again - wasting time caving to the hard right, despite his razor-thin majority.
GRISALES: So Democrats say this proposal is dead on arrival in the Senate.
MARTIN: So is there a way out?
GRISALES: You know, most people I talked to think so, even those who are opposed to this plan in terms of temporary funding. Democrats and some moderate Republicans say the way out is to fund the government and leave these fights to the side. The SAVE Act was sponsored by Texas Republican Chip Roy, a member of the hard-right group, the House Freedom Caucus. And Johnson has a tight margin in the House. He has to appease to that wing of his party, as well as his moderates. But he has said a government shutdown is not an option, so it's possible that in the end, Congress will reach a deal on a clean funding plan by the end of the month.
MARTIN: That's Claudia Grisales. Claudia, thank you.
GRISALES: Thank you.
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FADEL: Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, today on a joint trip with Britain's foreign secretary. The trip comes hours after the presidential debate, where the candidates had starkly different views on what to do about Ukraine.
MARTIN: Ukraine wants to use long-range weapons provided by the U.S. to hit military targets in Russia. The U.S. currently restricts this use, and Ukraine is pressing the White House to change that.
FADEL: With me now to discuss all this is NPR international correspondent Joanna Kakissis in Kyiv. Good morning.
JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: So what are Ukrainians expecting from Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy?
KAKISSIS: Well, Ukrainian leaders are hoping for some kind of green light on using these long-range weapons, especially after President Biden told reporters on Tuesday that his administration is, quote, "working on this issue." There seems to be some momentum to lift restrictions, especially after Blinken and Lammy revealed that Iran was supplying Russia with ballistic missiles, something Lammy called a, quote, "significant escalation." Ukraine wants to use these Western-supplied long-range missiles to hit Russian weapon stockpiles, logistical centers, airfields. Ukraine says this is the best way to stop Russian troops from advancing on Ukrainian land and killing people in Ukrainian cities. One attack last week killed at least 58 at a military academy.
FADEL: So the use of long-range weapons seems to be key at this moment of the war. How do people in Ukraine feel about using these weapons in Russia?
KAKISSIS: So young Ukrainians are especially rattled by the carnage. We spoke to several international relations students who are following Blinken's visit. They have welcomed Ukraine's drone attacks on Russia, including a massive one earlier this week. They say Russians need to feel what Ukrainians feel. Vladyslav Payuk, who is 19 - he says striking Russian military targets with long-range weapons is the best way to fight back.
VLADYSLAV PAYUK: Why can't we bomb their strategic facilities? Why can't we shoot them back? Every day, every day in every city of Ukraine, families getting killed.
KAKISSIS: Western allies, including the USA - they need to tread carefully with the use of long-range weapons because Russia has a vast arsenal that includes nuclear weapons.
FADEL: Ukraine, of course, was one of the topics at the presidential debate here in the U.S. last night, two different candidates laying out different visions. How much of a role is the presidential election playing in Ukraine's diplomacy?
KAKISSIS: Well, Ukrainians followed last night's debate, and they're following this election very closely. We saw lots of commentaries this morning noting that Vice President Kamala Harris made it clear that she would continue supporting Ukraine, but that former President Donald Trump seemed to evade answering that question, saying only that he will end the war, but not specifying how.
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DAVID MUIR: Do you believe it's in the U.S. best interest for Ukraine to win this war - yes or no?
TRUMP: I think it's the U.S. best interest to get this war finished and just get it done.
MUIR: All right. I...
TRUMP: Negotiate a deal.
KAKISSIS: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that he will present what he calls a plan for victory to the presidential candidates and, of course, to President Biden. And he says the plan will include how to put Ukraine in the best strategic position for eventual peace negotiations.
FADEL: NPR's Joanna Kakissis, thank you so much.
KAKISSIS: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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