STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The last time presidential candidates met for a debate it transformed the presidential campaign.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Now, one candidate has changed, and Vice President Harris meets former President Trump for their first and only scheduled meeting. An NPR/PBS News/Marist poll shows a statistical dead heat and close to one-third of those responding say tonight's debate will help them decide on their vote.
INSKEEP: NPR's Franco Ordoñez and Scott Horsley will be watching and are here to help us sort through the stakes. Gentlemen, good morning.
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: Good morning.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: I'm thinking about that finding that 30% or so of those responding say the debate will help them decide on their vote. I guess there aren't nearly so many undecided voters, but there are people who are still assessing Kamala Harris, the newer candidate here. What does she bring to the debate that Joe Biden couldn't in that disastrous debate in June?
ORDOÑEZ: You know, Steve, I mean, frankly, I mean, she's younger. She has more energy. And she's less likely to struggle when Trump attacks her. And as a former prosecutor, she can also hold Trump to account in a way that Biden couldn't and didn't. I mean, Biden didn't call out Trump's inability to answer questions, he didn't call out his lies, any missteps. Also, you know, let's just point out that Harris is looking to keep this momentum going after her really big explosion onto the scene. I mean, she's still seeking to define herself in the eyes of voters, you know, trying to show that she can be the one to chart a new course for the country. And she needs to show that she can be presidential, that a woman can be president.
As for Trump, I'll just point out that he wants to end what they see as kind of this extended honeymoon. He wants to paint her as just the same as Biden and tie her to his most controversial policies while presenting himself as the change candidate.
INSKEEP: And, Scott Horsley, I guess we should just note that although Harris has improved in polling compared to Joe Biden, it's still very, very, very close. And voters' top concern is the economy, for which they tend to blame the incumbent administration. How do you expect the candidates to lean on that?
HORSLEY: Yeah, well, based on what we've heard elsewhere on the campaign trail, I imagine Trump will try to paint Harris as responsible for a lot of the inflation that people are unhappy about. I imagine Harris will try to paint Trump as somebody who cuts taxes for the rich but doesn't do much for the middle class. And both candidates might talk about tariffs. You know, sweeping tariffs are a centerpiece of Trump's economic platform. Talking in New York last week, they seemed to be his solution to just about every problem. Harris might remind people that Trump's tariffs in the first term invited a lot of retaliation from our trading partners and wound up hurting U.S. farmers and other exporters.
INSKEEP: In addition to talking routinely about tariffs, Trump talks about domestic energy, traditional energy - drill, baby, drill, that sort of thing.
HORSLEY: Yeah, and we may hear more from him on that tonight. Harris could come back and say, look, the United States is already producing a record amount of oil and natural gas while also boosting its production of clean energy, liquid and solar.
INSKEEP: The U.S. is the world's No. 1 oil producer right now. Now, more broadly, people tell pollsters they're feeling a little more confident or less bad about the economy than they were a few months ago. What's the overall economic report card?
HORSLEY: You know, it is still chugging along. Employers are not adding jobs as fast as they had been, but the unemployment rate is still quite low, 4.2%. Inflation has cooled off considerably, although prices are still higher than most people would like. Gasoline prices are a bright spot they're down about 50 cents a gallon from a year ago. But grocery bills are still pretty high, and we know that's a source of frustration for a lot of people.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
HORSLEY: Americans are still spending money, though. And as long as that's the case, the economy's going to continue to bob along. What people aren't doing is saving a lot of money. The savings rate dropped to just 2.9% this summer.
INSKEEP: Wow.
HORSLEY: A lot of the extra savings that had piled up during the pandemic are now gone. And some people are relying on credit cards to pay their bills, and at today's high interest rates, that's a very costly form of debt.
INSKEEP: Aren't interest rates about to start falling, we think?
HORSLEY: Yeah, we're pretty sure the Federal Reserve is going to start cutting interest rates next week when policymakers meet. And mortgage rates have already come down a little bit.
INSKEEP: OK, and what does that add up to then when you look at the big picture economic message from each side?
HORSLEY: Well, I think Donald Trump is going to paint a dark picture of the U.S. economy, just as he does with immigration and foreign policy, and he'll present himself as the would-be rescuer. There's a sizable constituency that buys into that narrative. Even back in 2020, a lot of voters gave Trump an edge on the economy, even though unemployment had soared to almost 15% when the pandemic hit. And remember, Trump was the first president since Herbert Hoover to leave office with fewer jobs than when he came in. Harris' challenge will be to remind people about that checkered history and defend the economic record of the Biden administration while also acknowledging people are unhappy about today's high prices.
INSKEEP: OK, thanks very much, Scott Horsley. Franco Ordoñez is still with us. And I'm thinking about the personalities onstage here, Franco. Trump, when the candidates changed, when his opponent changed, he publicly said they're telling me to speak differently and be more polite - I'm not going to do it. So to what extent, if at all, will he adjust his tone because he is facing a woman?
ORDOÑEZ: Yeah, I mean, the campaign insists that he's not going to adjust his tone essentially because she's a woman. But you're absolutely right. I mean, he boasts himself kind of as this great negotiator, but he has really struggled with women, especially women in power who he sees as competition. I mean, you can think of Hillary Clinton. You can think of Nancy Pelosi. He's mean to everyone, of course, but he is different with women. I mean, he criticizes their appearance. He belittles their intelligence. So that's absolutely something I'll be watching for, whether Trump tones down his rhetoric.
Another thing I'll just add that I'll be watching for is whether age creeps up in this debate. You know, Biden was considered the old candidate in the last debate, but Trump is only a few years younger. And his rambling speeches have been getting a lot more attention recently now that Biden is out. So I'll be watching for that as well to look to see if you have more tangents and whether that leads to questions about his age and fitness for the job.
INSKEEP: Hasn't Trump also been going on his social media platform and elsewhere, by the way, and repeating promises to violate the Constitution, repeating promises to imprison people also?
ORDOÑEZ: Yeah, I mean, he's saying he'll prosecute those he says are going to steal the election from him. I mean, he's not giving any evidence of how, but these are kind of tactics that we've seen before where he kind of lays the groundwork to claim large-scale voter fraud. This time, it is a little bit different, though, with the threat of prison time for folks like election workers and political operatives and donors to his opponent. I mean, it's really reminiscent of things he has said, you know, before when he posted about terminating parts of the Constitution. As for the debate, I anticipate it's going to come up because these are intimidating threats that are really not - have no basis in fact.
INSKEEP: And no basis in law. How are the candidates preparing for the debate?
ORDOÑEZ: Well, Harris spent several days in Pittsburgh going through traditional debate prep. She's practicing with mock debates. She's working with advisers, studying issues like the economy but also immigration and Israel-Gaza. Now, Trump, he kind of scoffs at formal debate preparation. He says he prepares by going out on the campaign trail. You know, they've scheduled a bunch of events over the last couple of weeks on the key issues, like the talk at the economic club. And I will just note that his campaign boasts that Harris can't prepare for Trump, arguing that he's like the legendary boxer Muhammad Ali and all full of surprises.
INSKEEP: OK, NPR's Franco Ordoñez and Scott Horsley. Thanks to you both.
ORDOÑEZ: Thank you.
HORSLEY: Good to be with you.
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INSKEEP: Tens of thousands of Palestinians in southern Gaza were told they would find relative safety from Israeli airstrikes in a neighborhood called al-Muwasi.
MARTÍNEZ: It's a densely packed area with hundreds of tents, and that is where the Israeli military struck today. Israel says it was targeting a Hamas operation center. Gaza officials said the strike killed 40 people.
INSKEEP: NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi has been following this. She's in Tel Aviv. Good morning. Welcome.
HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: OK, I want to pass on a description of what it looked like in this neighborhood that was struck. Our producer Anas Baba was on the scene. What did he see?
AL-SHALCHI: Yeah, so Anas rushed over early this morning, and he talked to a number of survivors when he got there. When he got back, he described a chaotic scene. Three massive craters in the middle of the area that he said looked like they were, like, maybe 150 feet deep. Tents were destroyed under rubble. First responders told him that they took all night to pull the bodies out from underneath it. Anas talked to 52-year-old Maha Shar (ph). She said that her family went to bed at 11 p.m. last night and then woke up by massive booms about an hour later.
MAHA SHAR: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: Maha said she was disoriented. "Where am I sleeping, where am I?" she asked herself. Then after making sure her kids were safe, Maha said she looked around for her husband, Ahmed (ph), and found him buried under the debris and rubble of the attack. And then she said she had to use her bare hands to dig him out.
SHAR: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: Maha said she was screaming her husband's name - Ahmed, Ahmed - until she was able to rescue him.
INSKEEP: OK, so we have this picture of a wife, a woman, pulling her husband out of the rubble and rescuing him - in this case. A number of other people were killed. Can you pull back now from that scene? What was this neighborhood? What was this area exactly?
AL-SHALCHI: Right, so al-Muwasi is what Israel designated as a humanitarian zone. It's a place where they say Palestinians can find shelter, some resources. It's a narrow strip of land that's about 8 square miles outside Khan Younis. And overnight, Palestinians said that there was no warning to civilians to evacuate before this strike. And it's worth noting that the Israeli military normally says when it's ordered an evacuation, but this time in a statement, it didn't say anything about that. This is the deadliest strike in the south of Gaza since a brief polio campaign that ended a couple of days ago. During the vaccinations, there was, like, a brief pause. But now it obviously appears that the bombardment has resumed.
And, you know, if al-Muwasi sounds a bit familiar, it's because the Israeli military struck there in July and killed at least 90 Palestinians, according to health officials. It was also a humanitarian zone back then. So, yeah, today's strike wasn't the first time that the area has seen one. And to Palestinians, it really enforces the impression that nowhere is safe in Gaza, even those that are designated safe.
INSKEEP: Where do cease-fire negotiations stand?
AL-SHALCHI: So if you've been trying to follow the negotiations and feel a little dizzy, I don't blame you. It's been months and months of talking. So let's fast forward to now. Last month, there was some real impatience from international mediators. President Biden and the leaders of Qatar and Egypt said that they had presented a, quote, "final bridging proposal" to Israel and Hamas. Israel and Hamas have been blaming each other for stalling the talks, not budging on some major sticking points, which is on brand for them since these talks began. But then over the weekend, the CIA head, Bill Burns, said that the U.S. is making now a new cease-fire proposal to end the war. He said it hasn't been presented to either side yet, but he's hoping it'll come, quote, in the coming days. So the final deal didn't end up being final after all.
INSKEEP: OK. NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi. Thanks so much for the update, really appreciate it.
AL-SHALCHI: You're welcome.
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MARTÍNEZ: Body cam footage released by the Miami-Dade Police Department shows the encounter between officers and NFL star Tyreek Hill on Sunday.
INSKEEP: The Dolphins star was on his way to the game when a traffic stop for speeding escalated quickly.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: Out.
TYREEK HILL: I'm getting out, I'm getting out.
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: Get out. Get out.
HILL: Damn.
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: What part of get out don't you understand?
MARTÍNEZ: NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan has watched the footage. Becky, so what does the video show?
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Well, you know, it starts like what seems like a pretty normal traffic stop. You know, you see a pair of officers sitting on motorcycles, monitoring game day traffic. They're just right outside Hard Rock Stadium near Miami. It's a few hours before kickoff of Sunday's game before the Dolphins and the Jacksonville Jaguars. And so you can see, like, fans walking around in jerseys, and a black sports car zips by. The two policemen immediately flip on their lights to pursue him. It's Tyreek Hill. He pulls over. He rolls his window down a bit to hand over his license and then rolls his window back up, which prompts this sort of, like, verbal disagreement between Hill and the police over whether to leave the window up or down. And soon one officer decides that Hill needs to get out of the car.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, and the footage shows the officer opening Tyreek Hill's door to get him out of the car. So how did it escalate to that?
SULLIVAN: Yeah, I mean, it was really this disagreement over the window thing that, you know, you heard in this clip that you played just now. This officer really just decides it's time to come out, opens the door. He uses his hand, you can see in the video, to, like, forcefully yank Hill out of the car holding the back of Hill's head, pressing him to the ground. A minute or two later, you know, after he's in handcuffs, there's another little disagreement when an officer has walked Hill over to the curb and asks him to sit down, which Hill declines. That same officer who pulled him out of the car then runs over and sort of forces Hill to the ground. And you can just hear the tenor of the interaction in this clip and throughout the videos.
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HILL: I just had surgery on my knee. I just had surgery on my knee, bro. I just had surgery on my knee, bro.
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: Did you have surgery on your ears when we told you to put your window down?
HILL: Yo, chill, bro. Chill, bro.
SULLIVAN: And there's a lot of officers involved. There's maybe at least half a dozen. Most of them are much more calm. But really, honestly, it was pretty surprising to see how quickly it escalated. Ultimately, this is all over Hill going perhaps 55 or 60 miles an hour on a road with a speed limit of 40 miles an hour. And he ends up, you know, just getting cited for careless driving and failure to wear a seat belt.
MARTÍNEZ: And what did Miami police have to say so far?
SULLIVAN: Well, department officials are tight-lipped, as you might imagine. The investigation is ongoing, they say. They did release this video last night, they say in the interest of keeping the public informed. One officer, who's not yet been identified, has been placed on administrative duty.
MARTÍNEZ: OK, and what about Tyreek Hill and the Dolphins?
SULLIVAN: Well, Hill's lawyer says they will pursue legal action. And one thing that Hill said last night that I do think is worth probably bringing up is he was talking in an interview on CNN after the footage had come out and he explained why he'd kept that window rolled up, which was sort of this initial disagreement that seemed to prompt the dramatic reaction from the officer. Basically, Hill explains that he had wanted to keep it up as a way of not making a scene. So, like, all these passersby fans walking to the stadium, he was worried they would all notice it was him and just cause some commotion.
And so, I should also note that it wasn't just Hill involved in all of this because, you know, on the way to the game, two other Dolphins players stopped, saw what was happening, got out of their own cars and tried to deescalate. Tight end Jonnu Smith and defensive lineman Calais Campbell, who - worth noting - won the NFL's Walter Payton Man of the Year Award back in 2019 for his own charitable work. So they're seen on the footage, too. You can hear police yelling, you know, sort of yelling at them to back away or else be cuffed themselves. So the Dolphins put out a statement last night commending police for releasing the footage, but they called the officers' conduct aggressive and violent and urged officials at the department to take swift and strong action against those officers.
MARTÍNEZ: All right, NPR's Becky Sullivan. Thank you.
SULLIVAN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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