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Voices from the week that was, on the campaign trail

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

Last week, former President Donald Trump backed out of his interview with the CBS news magazine "60 Minutes." Vice President Kamala Harris went ahead with hers.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "60 MINUTES")

BILL WHITAKER: You want to expand the child tax credit?

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Yes, I do.

WHITAKER: You want to give tax breaks to first-time homebuyers...

HARRIS: Yes.

WHITAKER: ...And people starting small businesses.

HARRIS: Correct.

RASCOE: And Harris spent the rest of the week on a media blitz. Here's some of what the presidential candidates said as they said it with less than a month to go before Election Day.

(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)

WHITAKER: And Congress has shown no inclination to move in your direction?

HARRIS: I disagree with you. There are plenty of leaders in Congress who understand and know that the Trump tax cuts blew up our federal deficit. None of us...

WHITAKER: What do you think, too, of these judges basically saying whatever Trump does in office is OK?

HARRIS: This election is not 2016 or 2020 because that Supreme Court decision just a few months ago basically said to the former president, you will be immune from anything you do in office.

People who are in hospitals, without their family, where the only touch that they had was of a nurse that they hadn't met because the family could not get there - and this man is giving COVID test kits to Vladimir Putin? Think about what this means. On top of him sending love letters to Kim Jong Un - no, think about it. He thinks Vladimir Putin is his friend. What about the American people?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: They're alleging that you have had several phone calls with Vladimir Putin over the last 3 1/2 years. Can I ask if that's true?

DONALD TRUMP: It's wrong. That's absolutely wrong. Look, I know Bob Woodward. You know, I'm suing him.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah.

TRUMP: ...Because he used tapes, and he sold the tapes. He didn't just sell the book. He sold the tapes. He's not allowed to do it. He even says in the tape that he's not allowed to do it. And he sold the tapes. And I just think he's a bad guy, so I thought I'd have fun with him.

It's so simple. I mean, you know, this isn't like Elon, with his rocket ships that land within 12" on the moon where they wanted to land, or he gets the engines back. That was the first - I realized - I said, who the hell did that? I saw engines about three, four years ago. These things were coming cylinders, no wings, no nothing. And they're coming down very slowly, landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean someplace with a circle. Boom. Reminded me of the Biden circles that he used to have, right? He'd have eight circles, and he couldn't fill them up. But then I heard he beat us with the popular vote. I don't know. I don't know. Couldn't fill up the eight circles - I always loved those circles. They were so beautiful. They were so beautiful to look at. In fact, the person that did that... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Ayesha Rascoe is a White House correspondent for NPR. She is currently covering her third presidential administration. Rascoe's White House coverage has included a number of high profile foreign trips, including President Trump's 2019 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, and President Obama's final NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland in 2016. As a part of the White House team, she's also a regular on the NPR Politics Podcast.