Trump’s midterm closing speech focuses on D.C. construction projects
Campaign appeals and the California court request
Michigan Democrats are navigating the fallout after Rep. Haley Stevens endorsed Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate in the state’s Senate race against Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, according to The Wall Street Journal’s November 2 edition of the What’s News newsletter, curated by Amira McKee and Liz Webber.
In Texas, James Talarico is closing out his quest to become the first Texas Democrat to win statewide in more than 30 years. President Trump delivered a midterms closing speech that focused more on his renovation and construction projects around D.C.
The newsletter also reported that the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to require California to set aside mail-in ballots it receives from 20,000 people whom the federal government says might not be U.S. citizens. The request put the administration’s position on those ballots before the court as candidates made their final appeals to voters.
Business, markets and grid investment
In the past several days, institutional investors told the maker of Claude and its advisers that the company’s valuation in its planned IPO later this month should be around $1.5 trillion to $1.6 trillion, according to people familiar with the matter. That range was well below figures closer to $2 trillion that had been bandied about in recent months. The investors cited a list of factors including choppy markets and growing concerns about overexposure to AI bets.
Apple said its revenue grew 12% in the September quarter, slightly ahead of Wall Street’s expectations. Its widely tracked gross profit margin, at 47.9%, also came in just ahead of analyst estimates. The newsletter said Apple’s high-margin services business continues to slow, and assessed that the company needs to give people reasons to buy its devices as they get more expensive. Apple raised prices across the board last quarter to help offset the skyrocketing cost of memory and storage chips inside iPhones, iPads and Macs.
A proposed deal would take public a tungsten miner with ties to two of Trump’s sons. The company, which will be known as Kaz Resources, plans to sell shares to the public next year through a direct U.S. listing, giving Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump an ownership stake of below 1%, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Utilities are embarking on what they expect to be a generational investment in the grid. Spending on the transmission system by a group of investor-owned utilities and transmission companies is expected to rise to $43.7 billion this year, according to the Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade group. The newsletter said the spending has sparked debates about where to build the necessary infrastructure.
Iran conflict and military justice
The Trump administration and Arab mediators are making a number of efforts to reach a negotiated end to the conflict with Iran. But the lack of progress, paired with U.S. and Iranian threats of especially ferocious fighting if the conflict resurges, is heightening concerns across the region. The Journal reported that Trump has been leaning toward a large postelection attack that could target Iranian infrastructure and nuclear sites, but he hasn’t decided whether to go ahead.
Maj. Nidal Hasan, who was preparing to deploy to Iraq, opened fire in the heart of the Army base, the Journal reported the next day. A civilian police officer shot Hasan and ended the attack. Hasan had recently been promoted to major and transferred to Fort Hood.
Seventeen years later, Hasan, who was ultimately convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32, is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on Dec. 3. President Trump authorized the execution earlier last month on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recommendation. Hegseth later announced that the execution would be livestreamed, but Trump reversed that decision after advisers and lawmakers raised concerns about broadcasting the killing. If carried out, Hasan’s execution would be the first by the U.S. military in more than 65 years.
Plane crash and British emergency preparedness
Footage showed a fast-moving plane hitting the ground in a nosedive and exploding in a fireball the previous day, leaving a large crater in the road. Authorities hadn’t released the identities of the victims, who included two crew members and seven passengers. A 20-year-old named Nathalia Filgueiras was the co-pilot of the plane and died in the crash, her stepfather told The Wall Street Journal.
The newsletter said the British government has long struggled to get people to prepare for existential threats. It said the British find it a little embarrassing to make a fuss about something that may never happen, and it invoked the wartime slogan “keep calm and carry on.” The newsletter contrasted that approach with being seen cleaning shelves of bottled water and canned tuna, then suggested that a tongue-in-cheek approach to the end of the world might be getting through.