Morning Report — Debate night has arrived

The last presidential debate of the summer upended the race and spelled the end of President Biden’s political ambitions. Tonight’s faceoff between Vice President Harris and former President Trump could tip the scales in a contest essentially impossible to predict, at least according to the neck and neck battleground polls.

Each candidate wields advantages and vulnerabilities. Each will bring a strategy to Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center at 9 p.m. ET for a 90-minute event moderated by ABC News. Harris is a former prosecutor, practiced in the art of building a case and persuading juries. Trump is a showman who has steamrolled mainstream politicians during primary and general election debates since 2016. 

Each has economic policies to explain and defend, but each believes appearing presidential, drawing sharp contrasts with one another and conveying leadership and vision can go a long way toward moving swing-state undecided and independent voters in the next 56 days.

Harris has been tightly scripted since succeeding Biden as the Democratic nominee. Many Democrats see her as an underdog on a trajectory to victory in November, but that doesn’t mean they’re sanguine about tonight, reports The Hill’s Alexander Bolton. A long evening of what is basically a live television job interview standing behind a podium with a pad of paper, pen and bottle of water is a high-wire act.

Whom do voters want to live with in their news feeds for the next four years? Americans are fickle. And narrowly divided. They have become tired of presidents, turned off by politics and overstuffed with opinions. They tell pollsters they’re ready for something new, or perhaps a nostalgically familiar “change” candidate. Whatever is unknowable about Nov. 5 can be eyed through history: American politics are cleaved. Since 1857, the White House, House and Senate have been unified under one party just 48 times (23 under Democrats and 25 under Republicans).   

“He’s going to lie,” Harris said of Trump’s debate-stage M.O.

The vice president, who has been preparing by watching tapes of Trump’s past debates, said “there’s no floor” for the former president “in terms of how low he will go.” She spoke during an interview taped last week and broadcast Monday. “And we should be prepared for that. We should be prepared for the fact that he is not burdened by telling the truth,” she told “The Rickey Smiley Morning Show.”

“Ultimately, you know, what I intend to point out is … he tends to fight for himself, not for the American people. And I think that’s going to come out during the debate,” Harris continued. “But I expect that he is — I think he’s going to lie. And he has a playbook that he has used in the past.”

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LEADING THE DAY

POLITICS & CAMPAIGNS

IT’S PRIMARY NIGHT in New Hampshire, Delaware and Rhode Island. 

Granite State voters cast ballots today to select the nominees to succeed Republican Gov. Chris Sununu and Rep. Annie Kuster (D) in the state’s 2nd Congressional District. The two open-seat primaries have been the most active — and most full of vitriol.

The front-runner in the Republican gubernatorial primary is former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who was narrowly ousted from the Senate in 2016. Sununu endorsed Ayotte earlier this month. Ayotte’s most prominent rival, who polls behind her, is former state Senate President Chuck Morse.

Former New Hampshire Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern and former Department of Justice Deputy Assistant Attorney General Maggie Goodlander are squaring off in the Democratic primary to replace Kuster, who is retiring. Van Ostern declared his candidacy first, quickly earning Kuster’s endorsement. But his straight shot to the Democratic nomination was stifled when Goodlander launched her campaign in May, to prominent backing (NHPR).

TRUMP THREATENED this weekend to prosecute donors, lawyers and elections officials who he claimed “cheated” in the 2020 election or who engaged in behavior he deemed “unscrupulous” in November. And, The Hill’s Brett Samuels reports, he claimed a percentage of mail ballots in crucial Pennsylvania were “fraudulent,” though early voting has yet to begin there. Republicans have long argued Trump’s fixation on the 2020 election and his claims of widespread fraud are unhelpful politically, but critics viewed Trump’s most recent posts as a blaring warning sign about how the former president may react to November’s results, win or lose.

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ZOOM IN

CONGRESS   

FUNDING FIGHT: Senate Republicans gave the House GOP’s partisan plan to fund the government a chilly reception Monday, write The Hill’s Aris Folley and Al Weaver. Lawmakers have less than three weeks to figure out a solution to avoid a government shutdown on Sept. 30. At issue: timing and a noncitizen ban on voting that House conservatives want to attach to a stopgap bill.

Members acknowledge that the Trump-backed citizenship measure is almost certainly dead in the Senate, and many aren’t pleased with the stopgap’s six-month timeline. Still, House Republicans are expected to move quickly on the legislation, which would kick the current funding deadline into March. Conservatives, optimistic of Trump’s chances of winning the White House this year, argue the move will give the next president more influence over how the government is funded through fall 2025. But others worry it comes dangerously close to risking a shutdown.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Monday that the GOP proposal touted by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is “unserious and unacceptable” (The Hill).

“In order to avert a GOP-driven government shutdown that will hurt everyday Americans, Congress must pass a short-term continuing resolution that will permit us to complete the appropriations process during this calendar year and is free of partisan policy changes inspired by Trump’s Project 2025,” Jeffries said in a statement. 

And the White House said Biden would veto the proposal if it passes Congress (The Hill).

IT’S NOT JUST DEMOCRATS: At least six GOP lawmakers announced that they will vote against Johnson’s plan, more than the number needed to tank the effort. If all Democrats vote no, Republicans can only afford to lose four of their members, assuming full attendance (The Hill).

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told House and Senate appropriators in letters over the weekend that the House GOP’s spending plan would impose a “litany of difficulties” on the U.S. military (The Hill).

The Hill: Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Monday announced his panel will hold a hearing on the Supreme Court’s controversial ruling giving Trump broad immunity from prosecution for crimes related to his official acts as president.

AFGHANISTAN: Republicans and Democrats on Monday released dueling documents on the deadly August 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Republicans accused Biden of demanding an exit no matter the cost and claiming his administration prioritized optics over personnel security. Democrats, meanwhile, claim the GOP manipulated the facts (CNN and The Hill).

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ELSEWHERE

INTERNATIONAL 

CONGRESS LOBBY: Israel is lobbying lawmakers in Congress to press South Africa to drop its legal proceedings in the International Court of Justice over the war in Gaza, Axios reports. South Africa has until Oct. 28 to give the top United Nations court its arguments for continuing the case against Israel over alleged violations of the Genocide Convention.

A Tuesday Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp in a Gaza humanitarian zone killed at least 40 people and injured 60 others, NBC News reports. The Israeli military said it targeted “senior” Hamas militants and disputed the death toll. Images from the site showed craters left by the strike reached meters deep.

Meanwhile, Hamas denied that it had made new demands in cease-fire talks — which have stalled in recent weeks — with an official again blaming Israel for an impasse in negotiations. The group said it was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who had placed new conditions on a deal (The New York Times).

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THE CLOSER 

And finally … 🔟 Not the March of Dimes, but still a reminder of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s tenure in office. Ten cents could become half a million dollars when an auction for a rare coin closes in October.

The coin, known as the “1975 ‘no S’ proof dime,” will be displayed at a coin show beginning Wednesday in Tampa after being in one Ohio family’s bank vault for more than four decades. 

The flaw is the thing. The dime, which was struck in 1975, depicts Roosevelt but is missing the “S” mint mark for San Francisco, one of just two such coins known to exist without the mark. The other one sold at a 2019 auction for $456,000 and then again months later to a private collector.

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