Harris and Trump Deliver Their Closing Arguments

Happy Wednesday! We’re determined not to get attached to the pair of pandas who arrived at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, considering the state of U.S.-China relations. 

But, if the pandas have a panda baby … does the U.S. have birthright citizenship for large bears? 

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories. 

• Several outlets reported on Tuesday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday sent a letter to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, demanding that Israel improve humanitarian conditions in and increase aid flowing to Gaza in the next 30 days or risk the U.S. limiting military aid to Israel. Later on Tuesday, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller confirmed the two Cabinet-level secretaries sent Gallant the letter, but declined to specify potential repercussions. Miller added the letter was sent because, “Ultimately, we did not see our [humanitarian] concerns sufficiently addressed.”
• A terrorist gunman on Tuesday opened fire on a highway near the coastal Israeli city of Ashdod, killing a 33-year-old Israeli police officer and injuring four others. A volunteer ambulance driver shot and killed the gunman. While the assailant has not yet been identified by Israeli authorities, he’s reportedly a Palestinian originally from Gaza who had been living in the West Bank. Israeli police said the shooter reached the highway on foot and opened fire when the police officer—who had planned to get married next month—arrived to check on him.
• South Korea’s military reported on Tuesday that North Korea destroyed sections of roads and rail lines near the border that had connected the two countries. In response, South Korean officials said its forces fired warning shots south of the demilitarized zone along the two countries’ shared border. North Korean state media reported last week that the country’s military intended to block off all connecting routes into South Korea as part of its abandonment of unification. 
• The State Department announced on Monday that an Indian government committee was traveling to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to investigate allegations—which resulted in a June 2023 indictment—that a former Indian government employee last year plotted to assassinate Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York City. The committee’s visit comes one day after Canada expelled six Indian diplomats for allegedly targeting Sikh separatists living in Canada. 
• The U.S. and Canada on Tuesday jointly announced sanctions against the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, accusing the organization of being a “sham charity” fundraising for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S. government-designated terrorist group. “Organizations like Samidoun masquerade as charitable actors that claim to provide humanitarian support to those in need,” senior U.S. Treasury Department official Bradley T. Smith said, “yet in reality divert funds for much-needed assistance to support terrorist groups.” Canada went a step further, designating Samidoun as a terrorist organization. The group has sponsored a series of anti-Israel student protests on U.S. college campuses.
• A Georgia state judge ruled on Monday that county election officials in the state have a “mandatory fixed obligation to certify election results,” even when confronted with allegations of election fraud. While officials should report possible fraud if observed, they are nonetheless obligated to count all votes, the judge ruled. “There are no excuses,” Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his 11-page ruling. Republican county election board member Julie Adams first brought the case in May after she refused to certify the results of the state’s May primary, arguing alleged voter fraud allowed her to refuse election certification and access to further election information.
• The Department of Transportation (DOT) on Tuesday fined the German-based airline Lufthansa $4 million in civil rights penalties for allegedly discriminating against Jewish passengers in May 2022. Specifically, the federal agency said Lufthansa prevented 128 Jewish passengers from boarding their connecting flight in Frankfurt, Germany. A majority of the discriminated passengers wore attire distinct to Orthodox Jewish men, the DOT added. The hefty fine is the largest the DOT has ever doled out for civil rights violations. 

Twenty Days To Go  

On Monday evening, former President Donald Trump was answering questions at a town hall event outside Philadelphia hosted by South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem when there were two medical emergencies in the crowd. Trump requested his staff turn on “Ave Maria” over the loudspeaker while they waited for the pair to receive treatment.

But he wanted the Luciano Pavarotti version.

“Nice and loud, turn it up louder, we want a little action here,” he said as the opening strains of the Schubert classic—this time with the Italian tenor’s vocals—played over the PA system after the two people had been taken out of the overheated venue.

By the end of the song, the former president had decided it was time to chuck it in: “Let’s not do any more questions,” he told the crowd. “Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” 

And so for the next 39 minutes—after some brief interludes of stump-speech greats—Trump was on aux, asking his staff to play some of his personal favorites, including “Time to Say Goodbye,” “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” “YMCA,” “Hallelujah,” and “Rich Men North of Richmond” as he swayed, danced, wandered around the stage, and pointed at audience members.

The bizarre episode punctuated the home stretch of a campaign marked by increasingly dark rhetoric from the former president. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris is closing out election season with a …

As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our 1,725-word item on the two candidates’ final pitches to voters is available in the members-only version of TMD.

Worth Your Time

• Talk of a negotiated peace in Ukraine is more about the U.S. than it is about justice or even the end of the fighting, Robert Kagan argued in the Washington Post. “As is so often the case, U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine has been driven by what Americans don’t want,” Kagan wrote. “They don’t want to wind up at war with Russia; they don’t want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year on a seemingly unwinnable war; but they also don’t want to bear the guilt and shame of letting Ukraine lose, with all the humanitarian horrors and strategic problems that entails. For all their pretense of ‘realism,’ [former Sec. of State Mike] Pompeo and the other advocates of negotiated territorial concessions promise an outcome that conveniently solves the United States’ problems but no one else’s. The United States can impose its will on a desperately dependent Ukraine, but why must Putin go along? The advocates of peace talks with Russia simply assume that Putin will accept the outcome that best serves American needs.”
• Writing in his Substack, Slow Boring, Matthew Yglesias argued in favor of acknowledging trade-offs. “The desire to ignore tradeoffs is deeply human, and a trait that’s obviously not going away,” he wrote. “That said, I think we are in a particularly bad moment in terms of tradeoffs, due to both the rise of partisan polarization and the recent (lengthy) experience of living in the shadow of a depressed economy.” Even job creation comes with trade-offs. “More people working in the [child] care sector means fewer people rolling burritos or driving Ubers—something is going to end up costing more. A boom in factory construction means labor and materials diverted from homebuilding. Again, that doesn’t mean these are bad ideas, but you do need to think about what’s worth it. In a world with tradeoffs, it’s better to find a way to rewire America that only takes one million workers than one that requires three million. The ‘jobs created’ are the cost; the question is whether the costs are worth the benefits.

Presented Without Comment

Axios: Trump Downplays January 6: “You Had a Peaceful Transfer of Power”

“The primary scene in Washington was hundreds of thousands … and it was love and peace and some people went to the Capitol and a lot of strange things happened there,” Trump said of Jan. 6.

Also Presented Without Comment

New York Times: Mark Robinson Sues CNN Over Report Linking Him to Lewd Comments on Porn Site

In the Zeitgeist

A group of researchers recently discovered a hidden chamber underneath the ancient Al-Khazneh building in the archaeological city of Petra, Jordan. Indiana Jones fans may recognize the stone edifice from the film series’ third installment, where the whip-snapping archaeologist discovered the Holy Grail. 

So imagine the researchers’ surprise when they came across an eerily similar-looking chalice. “All of us just froze,” said Josh Gates, host of Expedition Unknown, who was part of the discovery team. “It looked nearly identical to the Holy Grail featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, set in the ancient building directly above the tomb. It was the ultimate moment of life imitating art.”

Hopefully, they knew better than to bring the chalice past the great seal.

Toeing the Company Line

• What’s the state of The Dispatch? What’s next for the pirate skiff? Is Jonah on a free market jihad? Steve and Jonah answered all those questions and more on a very special five-year anniversary edition of Dispatch Live (🔒). Members who missed the conversation can catch a rerun—either video or audio-only—by clicking here. 
• In the newsletters: The Dispatch Politics crew sized up GOP Rep. Don Bacon’s chances of survival in his Nebraska swing district, and Nick admitted (🔒) he was wrong and that voters aren’t running away from Trump now that the election is in the home stretch. 
• On the podcasts: Adaam is joined on The Dispatch Podcast by Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, senior resident at the Atlantic Council, to discuss public opinion in the Gaza Strip and what Palestinian self-governance will look like. Plus, Scott Lincicome joins Jonah on The Remnant to discuss tariffs and what politicians are getting wrong about them. 
• On the site: Drucker and Warren report that both campaigns are feeling enthusiastic in Pennsylvania, Kevin weighs in on Trump’s musical town hall, and Jonah pans Ta-Nehesi Coates’ bad logic regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.