Hey there, before we get to the show, a reminder that you can hear live coverage of tonight's

presidential debate on your local NPR station. Some of us from the NPR Politics Pod Squad will be

on your radio. And as the debate is happening, follow our live fact checking at npr.org and

catch a new episode of the podcast tomorrow morning. Okay, here's the show.

It's the NPR Politics Podcast here with another edition of Monday Mail, where we spend some time

answering your questions about the issues that we see on the campaign trail and anything else you're

curious about. I'm Tamer Keith, I cover the White House and the campaign. I'm Dominican Montenegro

political editor and I'm Ron Elving Editor correspondent. As usual, you're hearing this on a Monday,

but we're taping in a little bit earlier. So if there's any big weekend news, don't worry,

we'll be back in your podcast feed sometime soon to talk about it. And speaking of Monday,

the big debate is tonight, the first debate of the general election season. So let's start off

with a question from Ryan in California. Ryan writes, so with the big debates on the way,

what exactly does debate prep involve? I've heard they actually hold mock debate competitions

with surrogate candidates and moderators. I wish so badly. I could see who's playing Trump for

Clinton or Clinton for Trump. How tough does it get? Thank you. My loves. Ryan. Thank you for the

fairness there. Thank you. I think we all agree we'd love to see the mock debates too. Yes.

Yes. I they might do as well as the 100 million people expected to watch the real thing.

Right. So when it comes to debate prep, Hillary Clinton seems to be undertaking what is very

traditional debate prep. She's got binders and briefing books. She's going through nuance of

policy. She's holding mock debates. Donald Trump, very different debate prep. Donald Trump tends to

wing it on these kinds of things. He is very confident in his ability to mix it up with whomever.

And of course, has had the experience of being in many, many debates with many, many other

...