Hi, this is Mary. I'm calling from the Joseph Arviden train station, also known as Wilmington

station. I'm taking the Amtrak train back home to New York City from Wilmington, Delaware.

This episode was recorded at...

I respect the natural sound background of recording that right when the train pulled up.

That was impressive. It is 205 Eastern on Monday, September 27th.

Students may have changed by the time you hear this, but my train is here.

Okay, enjoy the show.

Perfect for an infrastructure discussion.

That's right. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Scott Detro, I cover the White House.

I'm Deerder Walsh, I cover Congress, and I'm Mara Lias and National Political Correspondent.

So the week in Congress, I think you can technically refer to it as bananas, which I believe

is spelled B-A-N-A-S. Is that accurate?

That's how you spell it. Other people have more colorful descriptions of it, Scott.

That's as colorful as we can get for now on the podcast. We'll see how the week develops

though, but I say that, and other people say that, because not even including everything,

we've got a government funding deadline, a Looming debt ceiling, and two massive bills

that together encompass just about every single item of President Biden's domestic political

agenda, and all of these things are really up in the air right now.

So Mara, let's start with this. The last couple months have been pretty rocky for Biden.

We've talked a lot about that. What are the stakes for him and for Democrats in general

this week?

Well, the stakes couldn't be higher. Obviously, they have to pass a bill to fund the government.

...