Principals

1. Trump world’s paranoid bravado
2. Harris’ closing argument
3. Obama on the trail
4. Trump’s Puerto Rico problem
5. More China investment rules
6. WaPo loses writers, readers
7. Reality check on tariffs
8. Lessons from Mexico

PDB: Views of crime in the US improve

Trump in Pennsylvania … Hezbollah names new leader … Bloomberg: How US tax breaks brought a Chinese solar company to Ohio

Inside Trump world, good news is treated with suspicion

Yes, Republicans get election anxiety too. Semafor’s Shelby Talcott reports that the Trump campaign is excited by internal polling, which one person said is slightly “more positive” than the public numbers, but is also paranoid that they’re missing some hidden Harris strength. “There’s not enough wood to knock on,” one person close to the campaign told Semafor. “There just isn’t. After what happened in 2020, and the ‘red wave’ that didn’t materialize in 2022, there are more skeptics than there are optimists.” While the race is a toss-up to outside forecasters, Trump’s team is well aware that the polls look better than the close of either of his last two campaigns. That said, The New York Times reports the Harris campaign is sounding more optimistic in their own numbers lately.

What Harris will say

Kamala Harris will deliver her campaign closing argument from Washington tonight, seeking to frame the election as a choice between two visions for America. A senior Harris campaign official said the address would be optimistic and hopeful, while casting Donald Trump as the candidate focused on grievances rather than the needs of the American public. Harris will speak from the Ellipse; the location is meant as a reminder of Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, speech before a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol. Some Democrats have chafed at Harris’ focus on Trump as a threat to democracy in the final days of the campaign, with progressives urging her to focus more on the plight of the working class. But Harris’ closing message will be broader, seeking to hit on both the economy and democracy as well as other issues, per Politico.

Embattled Ohio Democrat gets an Obama closing argument

That Barack Obama ad that we first reported the former president would cut for embattled Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is out on the airwaves now in Ohio. The radio ad touches on several key themes of Brown’s campaign, particularly the “dignity of work” that the state’s voters do every day. “Ohio, we can’t afford to lose Sherrod’s voice in the Senate. We need him to keep working hard for you,” Obama says in the ad, which you can listen to here. It’s not the raucous rally Obama held for vulnerable Sen. Bob Casey in Pennsylvania earlier this month — but that’s because Ohio is a much redder state these days after Obama won it twice. The former president’s presence is still a sign that Brown’s campaign sees Obama providing more of a benefit than a drag.

More fallout from Puerto Rico insult

The Harris campaign is running a new ad featuring Tony Hinchcliffe’s “island of garbage” crack at Puerto Rico as Democrats look to stoke outrage with Latino voters. The timing is inconvenient for Trump, who is visiting Allentown in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, home to a large Puerto Rican community that Politico reports has been intensely tuned into the rally story. While the campaign disavowed Hinchliffe’s remark, Vance said he hadn’t seen the joke in question, but that Americans should “stop getting so offended” so easily. Trump aides have insisted they didn’t see the line in Hinchcliffe’s prepared remarks ahead of time, which he had tested out (unsuccessfully) at a comedy club, but The Bulwark’s Marc Caputo reports that they did catch a planned four-letter word he planned to use against Harris in time to veto it.

Biden finalizes rule restricting investment in China tech

Certain US investments in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and quantum computing will be blocked for national security reasons under a new rule finalized by the Biden administration, Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant reports. The rule, set in motion by a 2023 executive order, also requires investors to disclose certain investments in these technologies in China to the US government. The administration sought input from outside stakeholders and US allies over the past year as it finalized the order. The rule would apply to a variety of transactions, like greenfield investments and corporate expansions, while providing carve-outs for others like publicly traded securities and certain limited partner investments. The rule adds to US-China tensions: A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Beijing “strongly deplores and firmly opposes the US rolling out restrictions on investment in China.”

More exodus from Washington Post

Two additional Washington Post opinion writers resigned from its editorial board as the paper grapples with the fallout of its decision not to endorse in the presidential race, Semafor’s Max Tani reports. David Hoffman, who joined the Post in 1982 and accepted a Pulitzer Prize just last week, resigned from the board. “I believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump. I find it untenable and unconscionable that we have lost our voice at this perilous moment,” Hoffman wrote in a letter to opinion editor David Shipley. Molly Roberts, who writes a column on technology and society, also resigned from the editorial board. Meanwhile, the Post is weathering a wave of digital subscription cancellations (200,000 as of midday Monday, per NPR) amid the controversy. Post owner Jeff Bezos penned an op-ed defending the decision as an effort to restore trust in the paper, saying presidential endorsements “create a perception of bias.”

What happens on tariffs next year

In the two weeks before the US election on Nov. 5, our Reality Check series explains the clear Washington policy implications — which are often a long way from campaign rhetoric.

This might be the biggest legislative fight if Donald Trump wins back the White House. That’s because his sweeping across-the-board tariff proposals are reviled by members of both parties and could theoretically be blocked — though his critics would need a veto-proof threshold. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has a bill that would require Congress to approve new tariffs. And even Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who likes some of Trump’s tariffs, says universal ones are too broad. The most likely way Congress could take on Trump’s tariffs is if Democrats can flip the House; holding the Senate is unlikely if Kamala Harris loses. With House control, Democrats could seek to block the tariffs or insert language in spending bills stopping them. An exception to the rule: China. Both parties seem more amenable to Trump or Harris continuing to hit Beijing with tariffs.

— Burgess Everett

Contested election in Mexico carries lessons for US

Mexico’s experience with contested election results could provide some lessons for the U.S., as Donald Trump calls into question the integrity of the US electoral apparatus like he did in 2020. After failing to win the 2006 presidential vote by a margin of just 0.5%, Andrés Manuel López Obrador led a months-long sit-in along Mexico City’s most important thoroughfare, costing the city hundreds of millions of dollars, and throwing the country’s political transition into a standstill. The much-publicized sit-in — which included an alternative swearing in ceremony where AMLO donned a copy of the presidential sash — helped galvanize support for his movement, which would go on to trounce the opposition in the 2018 and 2024 elections on its way to becoming the most powerful political force since the turn of the century.

— Jeronimo Gonzalez

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: House Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will both campaign Friday in New York’s 19th congressional district, where GOP Rep. Marc Molinaro is fighting to keep his seat.

Playbook: Some people in Pennsylvania are planning to protest Donald Trump’s visit there today. Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s comment about Puerto Rico “spread like wildfire” in the state, according to one local Democratic official.

Axios: Trump is already planning to blame RNC Chairman Michael Whatley if he loses the election.

WaPo: “Trump understands the impact [of the election outcome] for him personally,” one Trump confidant said. “Win or go to jail.”

White House

• President Biden is in Maryland at the Port of Baltimore today, where he’ll announce that he’s directing $3 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act to “improve and electrify” infrastructure at America’s ports.

Congress