Hey, it's Rachel Martin. I'm the host of Wildcard from NPR. For a lot of my years as a radio host, silence sort of made me nervous. That pause before an answer, because you don't know what's going on on the other side of the mic. But these days, I love it.

Oh, gosh. Give me a minute. Yeah, yeah. Think. Listen to the Wildcard podcast only from NPR.

You're listening to the 1A podcast. I'm Jen White.

And I'm Todd Zwillick.

It happens every year, sometimes even more frequently than that.

A fight is brewing over funding the government before a deadline on September 30th.

It is a fight that could be a rare moment for Democrats out of power to demand Republicans

and the Trump administration change course.

But what to demand specifically?

Republicans in the House passed a stopgap measure

with a razor-thin margin to fund the government through November 21st. The funding bill is now in the

Senate where it faces a tougher road. Senate Republicans tried to pass the House's version of that bill,

but failed to meet the 60-vote threshold to avoid a filibuster. Senate Democrats

proposed an alternate continuing resolution bill to fund the government through Halloween.

That version also extended health care premium subsidies and rolled back Medicaid spending cuts.

The Democrats bill failed. Here's Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday.

And I hope and pray that Trump will sit down with us and negotiate a bipartisan bill.

That's how it's always been done in the past.

That's how shutdowns have been avoided in the past.

And if he doesn't, I'm just confirming here, you will vote no.

Is that correct?

We are hoping that he will negotiate with us.

...