and that is one of the keys to understanding his life, his success in everything but the presidency. >> lisa mascaro joins us for a look at her work on spending bills in the deadline to fund the government by the end of the month. she's the chief congressional correspondent for "the associated press." where do things stand at this point with the spending package is making their way through congress? >> yeah, hi, stephanie. we are in really familiar terrain here. congress is staring down a september 30th deadline to fund the government in the current spending bills ran out at the end of the fiscal year. and so they've got to get their spending plan passed it over to the president's desk by the end of the month to get it signed into law so that there is no government shut down on october

october 1st at the start of the new fiscal year. there is a strategy put in place this year that was really unlike any we've seen in a long time and it was to try to avoid this crisis of shutdown politics that we often see. but this interesting strategy in place is still kind of headed towards this potential problem. the core issue as it has been for a lot of is this debate over the border wall. president trump ran on putting up a border wall between the u.s. and mexico and he wants a lot of money from congress to do that and congress has been unwilling to fund the wall at the level he wants. that is the crux of this issue right now of whether or not congress can get to an agreement on the rest of the spending bills and get them passed and improved in time and whether or not president trump puts up a

big fight over the full funding he wants for his border wall. >> one of your colleagues at the apa has been writing about the president and a little bit of what his top about. he writes that the president has said, if it happens come at the shutdown happens, it happens. it's about border security and the president says i'm willing to do anything. so how does that impact congress and its work on all of the spending package is? >> yeah, so let's just rewind a little bit here and talk about the congress has been doing. earlier this year there had been a government shutdown, to actually in the winter in february and when they finally were able to fund the government, they sent the president is a trillion dollars spending bill for the remainder of the year. he very reluctantly signed in

the president was out at the white house and he said never again. i don't want to do a big spending bill. so congress, congressional leader in senate majority leader mitch mcconnell started trying to pass smaller clumps of spending bills. so they got a series of these packages, smaller packages trying to get through to congress and to the president desk. they've made enormous progress this year and doing now. the house and senate have both passed what is essentially nine of the 12 smaller spending bills that add up to all the money needed to fund the government. they are in the middle of that process right now trying to get these bills agreed to between the house and senate and over to the president desk. of course the one bill they don't have on that list is the funding for the department of homeland security, which is the funding for the border wall. the problem here is there are mixed minds of whether it is

better to engage in this issue of shutdown politics over the border wall or not the head of the election. the president clearly is indicating that he thinks this is good politics and really revs up this space and voters ahead of the election as they did for him in 2016 when he would hold those campaign rallies and talk about the wall and shout back again to build a wall, who's going to pay for it, mexico, all of that. house republicans are struggling right now to hold on to the majority. senate republicans also has this and they just do not see good politics. when you look at the house members in particular, the most endangered members, the ones who are really fighting for their political futures are those in

the swinging districts that new york, california and where they have to address this immigration politics and highlight the issue of the wall. they hold onto the majority in congress. there's talk of a shutdown and amplifying the issue of the wall isn't really helpful for them. of course, the president thinks it's good politics to get folks excited and it might be, but maybe not in those areas where they need voters the most. >> just briefly, in the senate there is a pretty big package making its way through on opioids and it's a comprehensive legislation dealing with the opioid crisis. the house passed its own version. house and senate might come together on this. what do you think we're going to see this week? >> absolutely. senate leader mcconnell did

announce you'd like to have a vote on that this week. this is a really big package. congress has struggled to find some agreement on how to handle the crisis. as you mentioned, the house this summer past a big bill. 40, 50 bills and the package is quite robust. they are expected to have a vote on that thursday. the senate scheduled this week is truncated. there are for a couple days at the start of this week and of course the storm is headed this way and so just the schedule is a little up in the air, but they are indicating they would like to have a vote on not by thursday and that package would need to be reconciled before it could be sent to the president's desk. >> appreciated. we will continue to follow you, storms in all on twitter@lisa mascaro in your reporting that bp news.com. thank you so much.

>> thanks, stephanie. >> we will take you to new york city for governor andrew cuomo and bill de blasio marking the 17th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the world trade center. the event began just before 8:46 a.m. when the first plane hit the north tower. the ceremony runs about 3.5 hours. [inaudible conversations]