Geoff Bennett:
For more on the Trump administration’s legal battle over a closely watched Senate race in Alaska and the latest tensions surrounding the war in Ukraine, we turn to Capehart and Ponnuru’s analysis tonight. They are Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW and Ramesh Ponnuru, editor-in-chief of “The National Review.” David Brooks is absent tonight.
It’s always a pleasure to see you both.
Jonathan Capehart:
Hi, Geoff.
Geoff Bennett:
So the Justice Department is now filing a lawsuit to potentially block the certification of Alaska’s Senate election if Republican Dan Sullivan loses. Let me be clear, we have not had an election yet.
Jonathan, what do you think of this president running his DOJ? He said he was the one who told him to do it, to lay the legal groundwork to contest a possible defeat.
Jonathan Capehart:
It disrupts, breaks, whatever word you want to use, all kinds of precedents, all kinds of new ground. First, the President of the United States should not ask the Justice Department to do anything.
I mean, he’s the first president to turn the Justice Department into his own law firm. That’s not his role. They are supposed to take care of the laws of this country on behalf of the American people. This is one. Second, the executive branch and the federal government have nothing to do with elections, period, anywhere.
And third, you showed – I’m so glad you showed the ballot for everyone to see. It won’t be difficult to figure out which Dan Sullivan, if you want to vote for, which one or the other you want to vote for? Because incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan, it’s right there in parentheses.
So this is a trial looking for crisis or chaos, and I hope that whatever happens, it gets dispatched before the election, before Election Day.
Geoff Bennett:
Is this…and here we see the ballot paper that you were referring to?
So, Ramesh, is this a legitimate concern about the integrity of the election with the Sullivans competing, or is this an attempt to cast doubt on the outcome of the election before the voters have even decided?
Ramesh Ponnuru, editor of “The National Review”: Well, the lawsuit asks for noncertification in the event that Sullivan, Senator Sullivan, loses by a margin small enough that votes for the other Dan Sullivan would make the difference. So this would be a very unusual situation.
I think it’s unlikely to happen that way. It could be, frankly, that Mary Peltola, the Democratic candidate, wins by a larger margin, given how the vote is shaping up. Look, Republicans think this is a dirty trick that Democrats played to spoil the election, to taint the election.
The fact is, however, as the Alaska Supreme Court ruled in June, it remains on the ballot. Both of these Sullivans remain on the ballot. We do not know the court’s rule or its reasoning because it has not been published. He says it will come out later. But that’s sort of the end of the problem legally.
As far as I know, there’s not much scope for the federal government to get involved. It is therefore difficult to imagine that this trial will go very far.
Geoff Bennett:
What precedent would it set if a president could use the Justice Department to delay the certification of an election simply by alleging that, hey, voters might be confused?
Jonathan Capehart:
This would be a terrible precedent.
And let’s also not forget that this is yet another step he has taken to sow confusion about the upcoming midterm elections, but it is consistent with a practice he has engaged in since January 6, 2021, when he attempted to overturn a free and fair election. It’s just another gamble. And I don’t think it’s going to work.
Ramesh Ponnuru:
It’s interesting too. Senator Sullivan’s campaign said: We believe our voters will be able to make a difference.
Geoff Bennett:
More to come on this story, that’s for sure.
So we’ve been covering this story all week first reported by the Wall Street Journal that Elon Musk had ordered restrictions on Ukraine’s access to its Starlink satellite communications network. The Trump administration offers conflicting versions of who authorized these restrictions.
President Trump says Musk has since restored access, but Zelensky and Ukrainian military officials report that these disruptions continue. When you look at this, I mean, we’re talking about technology used in active warfare.
Has the United States actually outsourced, in many respects, part of its foreign policy to Elon Musk?
Ramesh Ponnuru:
Absolutely. We seem to have a partly privatized foreign policy.
And, look, the private sector has done some extremely wonderful things in terms of technological development, but one has to question the wisdom of allowing so much control over our politics to be defined by a private individual, an individual with his own political interests, his own political views, which, frankly, are not always perfectly grounded in reality.
Geoff Bennett:
Musk is one of the Republican Party’s biggest financial benefactors. How do you see all this?
Jonathan Capehart:
Look, I don’t know if the administration has outsourced its foreign policy. To me it seems like we have a private citizen taking unilateral action in a war.
Second, I remember something that an old friend and mentor, Alberto Ibarguen, when he was president of the Knight Foundation, told me about the Internet: Congress will make no law that would infringe on the rights of the American people as a whole.
But then he asked the question: What if it’s not Congress that is infringing on their rights? And Starlink, his role in X, the social media platform, he is now someone who is infringing on the rights of the American people at large. And so whether it’s disrupting Starlink in Ukraine or pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into campaigns across the country, that would be someone who would be wonderful, if it wasn’t the president, then Congress would step in and say, no, no, no, no, that’s not your role.
Ramesh Ponnuru:
Well, they have to get to the bottom of it first, right? There must 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 that voters need to know who to hold responsible and accountable. But here we have American foreign policy and the administration is engaged in a gigantic blame game over who actually is calling the shots. Is it Trump? Is it Rubio? Is it Hegseth? Is it this simple citizen?
Geoff Bennett:
In my remaining time, I want to turn to President Trump who is now defending Vivek Ramaswamy’s ad. This ad we’ve been talking about all week features Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton’s ex-mother.
This even as Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, called for the ad to be taken down because Acton said her mother’s husband sexually abused her when she was a child. There are court records that support this. And Ramaswamy’s campaign is spending $4 million to promote this ad in which Amy Acton’s biological mother casts doubt on her own version of her childhood.
President Trump isn’t just defending advertising. He encourages Ramaswamy to keep this ad on the airwaves despite bipartisan backlash. What do you think?
Jonathan Capehart:
I wrote last week in an article about President Trump and Hegseth and their implications for masculinity that the president is a walking moral vacuum. And this is yet another example.
No one, regardless of your political label, could know Ms. Acton’s story, or her relationship with her mother, and think that this publicity, even in the heat of a political campaign, is the right or appropriate thing to do.
And the fact that the President and the Vice President are both saying move on, with Vice President Vance saying people are complaining, that’s reprehensible. It’s great that Governor DeWine came out and other Republicans came out and said Ramaswamy should pull the ad.
But I think they should go further. They should also withdraw their support.
Ramesh Ponnuru:
The Trumpian style of politics, of course, is to never give in, even if you are sometimes wrong. You can never admit it and you just keep moving forward.
And in Trump’s case, his interactions with reporters on this issue make it clear that this instinct is coming into play, even if he doesn’t seem to be aware of the basic factual context of this controversy.
Now, what I think we see in Ohio is the limits of this Trumpian style, because as many Americans find a lot of problems in Trump’s character, find a lot of — find a lot of the things he does vile, a lot of people find it as well — that there is charm and charisma and humor in Trump.
They don’t see that in Ramaswamy, and I don’t think he gets away with the same things that Trump got away with.
Geoff Bennett:
And this has been true throughout the Trump era. The rules that apply to Donald Trump apply to Donald Trump and virtually no one else.
Jonathan Capehart:
Yes, only, only Donald Trump. And anyone thinking about running in 2028 thinks they’re going to take the MAGAverse and inherit it from Donald Trump, you better think again.
Geoff Bennett:
Jonathan Capehart, Ramesh Ponnuru, good to see you both. Have a good weekend.
Jonathan Capehart:
Thanks, Geoff. You too.
Ramesh Ponnuru:
THANKS.
Geoff Bennett:
And a reminder that you can join us for special live coverage on Election Day. We’ll have the most recent results from the battle for Congress, plus full analysis. It’s Tuesday, November 3, starting at 7 p.m. Eastern.
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