GEOFF BENNETT: For more on the Trump administration's legal fight over a closely watched Senate race in Alaska and the latest tensions surrounding the war in Ukraine, we turn to the analysis tonight of Capehart and Ponnuru.

That's Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW and Ramesh Ponnuru, editor of "The National Review."

David Brooks is away this evening.

Always great to see you both.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Hey, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: So, the Justice Department is now suing to potentially block certification of Alaska's Senate election if the Republican, Dan Sullivan, loses.

We have not had an election yet, to be clear.

Jonathan, what do you make of this president directing his DOJ?

He said that he's the one who told him to do it, to lay the legal groundwork to challenge a possible defeat.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: This disrupts, breaks, whatever word you want to use, all sorts of precedent, all sorts of new ground.

One, the president of the United States should not be directing the Department of Justice to do anything.

I mean, he's the first president to turn the Department of Justice into his own personal law firm.

That is not its role.

They are supposed to be about the laws of this country on behalf of the American people.

That's one.

Two, the executive branch and federal government have nothing to do with elections, period, anywhere.

And three, you showed -- I'm so glad you showed the ballot for everyone to see.

It is not going to be difficult to determine which Dan Sullivan, if you want to vote for which one, either one, which one you want to vote for?

Because incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan, it's right there in parenthesis.

So this is a lawsuit in search of a crisis or chaos, and it is my hope that, whatever happens with this, it is dispatched before the election, before Election Day.

GEOFF BENNETT: Is this -- and we see the ballot there that you were referencing?

So, Ramesh, is this a legitimate concern about election integrity with the competing Sullivans, or is this an effort to cast doubt on a election result before voters have even spoken?

RAMESH PONNURU, Senior Editor, "The National Review": Well, the lawsuit is asking for a non-certification in the case that Sullivan, Senator Sullivan, loses by a margin small enough that the votes for the other Dan Sullivan made the difference.

So that would be a very unusual kind of circumstance.

I think it's unlikely to happen that way.

It could be, frankly, that Mary Peltola, the Democrat running, just wins by a larger margin, given the way that the polling is looking.

Look, Republicans think that this is a dirty trick that the Democrats have played to sour the election, to taint the election.

The thing is, though, the Alaska Supreme Court said in June, he stays on the ballot.

Both of these Sullivans stay on the ballot.

Now, we don't know the court's rule -- the reasoning, because it hasn't released that reasoning.

It says that's coming out later.

But that's sort of the end of the matter legally.

As far as I can tell, there's no actual federal hook for the federal government to get involved.

So it's hard to see this lawsuit going very far.

GEOFF BENNETT: What precedent would it set if a president could use the Justice Department to delay certification of an election by simply alleging that, hey, voters might be confused?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: It would be a terrible precedent.

And also let's not forget this is yet one more action that he has taken to sow confusion about this upcoming midterm election, but this is in keeping with a practice he has done since January 6 of 2021, when he tried to overturn a free and fair election.

This is just one more gambit.

And I don't think it's going to work.

RAMESH PONNURU: It's interesting too.

Senator Sullivan's campaign said, we think our voters are going to be able to tell the difference.

GEOFF BENNETT: More to come on this on this story, for sure.

So we have been reporting throughout this entire week on this story first reported by The Wall Street Journal that Elon Musk ordered restrictions on Ukraine's access to his Starlink satellite communications network.

The Trump administration has been offering conflicting accounts of who authorized these restrictions.

President Trump says Musk has since restored the access, but you have Zelenskyy and Ukrainian military officials reporting that these disruptions continue.

When you look at this, I mean, we're talking about technology that is being used in an active war.

Has the U.S.

in many ways effectively outsourced part of its foreign policy to Elon Musk?

RAMESH PONNURU: Absolutely.

It seems as though we have got a partly privatized foreign policy.

And, look, the private sector has done enormously wonderful things in developing technology, but you do have to wonder about the wisdom of letting so much control of our policy be set by a private individual, one with his own political interests, his own political views, which are, frankly, not always perfectly grounded in reality.

GEOFF BENNETT: Musk is one of the Republican Party's biggest financial benefactors.

How do you see all of this?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Look, I don't know if the administration has outsourced its foreign policy.

To me, it looks like we have a private citizen who is taking unilateral action in a war, one.

Two, I'm reminded of something that an old friend and mentor of mine, Alberto Ibarguen, when he was president of the Knight Foundation, I remember him saying to me about the Internet, Congress shall make no law that will infringe on the rights of the American people writ large.

But then he asked the question, what happens if it's not Congress that is infringing on their rights?

And the Starlink, his role in X, the social media platform, he is now someone who is infringing on the rights of the American people writ large.

And so whether it's disrupting Starlink in -- for Ukraine or flooding hundreds of millions of dollars into campaigns around the country, this is somebody who it would be wonderful, if not the president, then Congress stepping in and saying, no, no, no, no, this is not your role.

RAMESH PONNURU: Well, they have to get to the bottom of it first, right?

There has to be, I think, an investigation.

Because it's funny, because this administration has insisted on the unitary executive.

And the whole idea of a unitary executive is, voters need to know who to hold responsible and accountable.

But here we have American foreign policy and the administration's in a giant blame game as to who in fact is actually calling the shots.

Is it Trump?

Is it Rubio?

Is it Hegseth?

Is it this private citizen?

GEOFF BENNETT: In the time that remains, I want to get to President Trump now defending Vivek Ramaswamy's advertisement.

This ad that we have been talking about all week, it features the estranged mother of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton.

And this is even as Ohio's Republican Governor Mike DeWine has called for the removal of this ad, because Acton has said that her mother's husband sexually abused her when she was a child.

There are court records that corroborate that.

And Ramaswamy's campaign is spending $4 million promoting this ad with Amy Acton's birth mother casting doubt on her own account of her childhood.

President Trump isn't simply defending the ad.

He's encouraging Ramaswamy to keep this ad on the airwaves despite bipartisan backlash.

What do you make of it?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I wrote last week in a piece just about President Trump and Hegseth and their dabbling into masculinity that the president is a walking moral void.

And this is yet another example of that.

No one, regardless of your political label, could know about Ms.

Acton's story, relationship, such as it is, with her mother and think that that ad, even in the heat of a political campaign, is the right thing to do or appropriate.

And the fact that the president and the vice president both say keep going, Vice President Vance saying that folks are whining, this is reprehensible.

It's great that Governor DeWine came out and other Republicans have come out and said that Ramaswamy should take the ad down.

But I think they should go a step further.

They should take their endorsements back as well.

RAMESH PONNURU: The Trumpian style of politics is, of course, never give in, even though you're in the wrong sometimes.

You can just never admit it and you just keep going forward.

And in Trump's case, you could tell from his interactions with reporters on this issue, obviously, that instinct comes into play, even though he didn't appear to be aware of the basic factual background of this controversy.

Now, what I think we're seeing in Ohio is the limits of that Trumpian style, because as much as many Americans find a lot of problems in Trump's character, finds a lot -- find a lot of the things that he does vile, a lot of people also find him -- there to be some charm and some charisma and some humor in Trump.

They don't see that in Ramaswamy, and I don't think he's getting away with the same things that Trump has been able to get away with.

GEOFF BENNETT: And that has been true the entire Trump era.

The rules that apply to Donald Trump apply to Donald Trump and virtually no one else.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Right, only, only Donald Trump.

And anyone who thinks of running in 2028 thinks that they're going to take the MAGAverse and inherit it from Donald Trump, you better think again.

GEOFF BENNETT: Jonathan Capehart, Ramesh Ponnuru, great to see you both.

Have a good weekend.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thanks, Geoff.

You too.

RAMESH PONNURU: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: And a reminder that you can join us for live special coverage on Election Day.

We will have the most up-to-date results in the battle for Congress, plus full analysis.

That's Tuesday, November 3, starting at 7:00 p.m.

Eastern.